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= 14-6.16 VESEYaTREET- 




LOVEL, 

THE WIDOWER 


BV 

W. M. THACKERAY 




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LOVELL’S LIBRARY. 


C j^T-A!XXD g-tje . 


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37. 

38. 

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40. 


41. 

42. ' 
451 . 

44. 


Hyperion, by H. "W. Longfellow. . .20 
Outre Sley, by H. W. Ltmgferllow. ..20 

The Happfy Boyi bv BjOmeon 10 

Xritp, by BjOrftsoni'. ..It,. . . .10 

^Frankenstein; or. the ModernlPro-., 
metheua, by Mrs. Shelley. ^ 5 . . . .ilO;, 
The Last of the Mohicans, ny J. 

Fenimore Cooper 2ff 

Clytie, by Joseph Hatton 20 

The Moonstone, by Collins, P’t I.. 10 
The Moonstone, by Collins, P'tJI.lO 
Oliver Twist, by Charle.s Dickens . 20 

The Coming Eace, by Ly tton 10 

Leila, by Lord Lytton 10 

The Three Spaniards, by Walker.. 20 
The Tricks of the Greeks Unveiled; 
or, the Art of Winning at every 

Game, by Eobert Houdin ,20 

L’Abb 6 Constantin, by Hal6vy..20 

Freckles, by E. F. Eedcliff 20 

The Dark Colleen, by Harriett Jay .20 
They Were Married 1 by Walter Be- 

sant and James Eice 10 

Seekers after God. by Canon Farrar. 20 
The Spanish Nun, by Thoe. De 

Qnincey 10 

The Green Mountain Boys, by 

Judge D. P. Thomp.son 20 

Fleurette, by Eugene Scribe 20 

Second Theughta, by Ehoda 

Broughton 20 

The New Magdalen, by Wilkie 

Collins 20 

Divorce, by Margaret Lee 20 

Life of Washington, by Henley.. 20 
Social Etiquette, by Mrs. W. A. 

Saville 15 

Single Heart and Double Face, by 

Charles Eeade 10 

Irene, by Carl Dettef 20 

ViceVersil; or, d Lesson to Fathers, 

by F. Anstey 20 

Ernest Maltravers, by Lord Lytton .20 
The Haunted House and Calderon 
the Courtier, by Lord Lytton... 10 

John Halifax, by Miss Mulock 20 

800 Leagues on the Amazon, being 
Part I of the Giant Eaft, by 

Jules Verne 10 

The Cryptogram, being Part II of 
the Giant Eaft, by Jules Verne.. 10 
Life of Marion, byllorry andWeems. 20 

I’anl and V irginia 10 

Tale of Two Cities, by Dickens 20 

The Hermits, by Kingsley 20 

An Adventure .in Thule, an^ Mar- 
riage of Moira Fergus, by Wm. 

Black 10 

A Marriage in HBfeh Life, by Octave 

' Feiiillet .......... 20 

Eobin, by Mrs. Parr .... 20' 

Two on a Tower, byThomas Hardy .20 
Easselas, by Samuel Johnson 10 


45 . AUce, or;, the Mysteries, beitig Part 

: of Ernest jjaltravers 

46. Dnke of Kandos, by 'A. Matthey 

47. Bdron Munchausen : 

, 48. A Princefts of Thule, by Wm. Black 

.^49. The Secret Despatch, by Grant..., 
60. Early Days of Christianity, by Can- 
on Farrar, D,D., Part I. 

Early Days of Christianity, by Can- 
on Farrar, D.D., Part II 

51. Vicar of Wakefield, by Oliver Gold- 

smith i .................. .. 

52. Progress Poverty, by Henry 

Georjge. 

53. The Spy, by J. Fenimore Cooper. . . 

54. East Lynne, by Mrs. Henry Wood, 

55. A Strange Story, by Lord Lytton. . 

56. A'dam Bede, by Geo. Eliot, Part I. , 
Adam Bede, by Geo. Eliot, Part II. , 

57. The. Golden Shaft, by Gibbon. 
68. Portia, or, By Passions Eocked, by 

The Duchess 

59. Last Days of Pompeii, by Lytton, 

60. The Two Duchesses, being the se- 

quel to the Duke of Kandos, by 
A. Mathey 

61. Tom Brown's School Days at Eug- 

by 

62. TheWooing O’t, by Mrs. Alexander, 

Fart I 

TheWooing O't, by Mrs. Alexander, 
Part II 

63. The Vendetta, Tales of Lore and 

Passion, by Honore de Balzac.. 

64. Hypatia, by Eev. Kingsley, Part I. . 
Hypatia, by Kingsley, Part II. . . . 

65. Selma, by Mrs. J. Gregory Smith.. 

66. Margaret and her Bridesmaids... 

67. Horse Shoe Eobinson, Part I 

Horse Shoe Eobinson, Part II 

68. Gulliver’s Travels, by Dean Swift.. 

69. Amos Barton, by George Eliot. . . . 

70. The Berber, by W. E. Mayo 

71. Silas Marner, by George Eliot... 

72. The Queen of the County 

73. Life of Cromwell, by Paxton Hood, 

74. Jane Byre, by Charlotte Bronte.. 

75. Child’s History of England, by 

Charles Dickens 

76. Molly Bawn. by The Duchess 

77. Pillone, by William Bergsde 

78. ' ' Phyllis, by the Duchess 

79. Eomola, by George Eliot, Part I . . . 
Eomola, by George Eliot, Part II. . 

80. Science in Short Chapters 

81. Zaxibni. by Lord Lytton 

82. A Daughter of Heth, by W. Black . 

83. The Eight and Wrong Uses of the 

Bible, by Eev. E. Heber Newton. 
84 Night and Morning, by Lord Lytton 

Part I 

Night and Morning, by Lord Lytton 
Part II 


20 
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*The Wooing O't, Parti 15 

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♦Vice Versa; or, a Lesson to 
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♦Cast up by the Sea 20 

♦Eigtit Years Wandering in Ceylon.. 20 
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They Were Married 10 

Let Nothing You Dismay 10 

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♦The Golden Calf 20 

♦Lady Audley s Secret 20 

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An Adventure in Thule and Marriage 

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♦A Princess of Thule 20 

♦A Daughter of Heth 2(t 

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More Words About the Bible 20 

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♦The M oonstone, Part I 10 

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♦Heart and Science 20 

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♦The Last of the Mohicans 20 

♦The Spy 20 

By THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 

The Spanish Nun 10 

By carl DETLEP. 

Irene, or the Lonely Manor aO 

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*0 iver Twist 20 

Pickwick Papers, Part 1 20 

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♦A Tale of Two Cities 20 

♦Child’s History of England 20 

By “ THE DUCHESS.” ' 

♦Portia, or by Passions Rocked 20 

♦Molly Bawn 20 

♦Phyllis 20 

Monica 10 

♦Mrs. Geoffrey 20 

♦Airy Pairy Lilian 20 

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♦Faith and Unraith 20 

♦Loys. Lord Beresford 20 

Moonshine and Marguerites 10 

By Lokd DUPPERIN. 

Letters from High Latitudes 20 

By GEORGE ELIOT. 

♦Adam Bede, Part I.' 15 

“ “ Part II 15 

Amos Barton 10 

Silas Marner 10 

* Romola Part I 15 

“ Partll 15 

By F. W. FARRAR, D.D. 

♦Seekers After God 20 

♦Early Days of Christianity, Part I. . .20 

Part II.. 20 

By JOHN FRANKLIN. 
Ameline du Bourg 15 

By octave PEUILLET. 

A Marriage in High Life 20 

By EMILE GABORIAU. 

♦The Lerouge Case 20 

♦Monsieur Lecoq, Part 1 2C 

“ “ Part II 20 

♦The Mystery of Orcival 20 

♦Other People’s Money 20 

♦In Peril of his Life 20 

♦The Gilded Clique 20 

Promises of Marriage 10 


By henry GEORGE. 
Progress and Poverty 20 

By CHARLES GIBBON. 

♦The Golden Sha^t 20 

By OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Vicar of Wakefield 10 

By Mrs. GORE. 

The Dean’s Daughter 20 

By JAMES GRANT. 

♦The Secret Despatch 20 

By THOMAS HARDY. 

Two on a Tower 20 

By PAXTON HOOD. 

Life of Cromwell 15 

By LEONARD HENLEY 
♦Life of Washington 20 

By JOSEPH HATTON. 

♦Clytie 20 

♦Cruel London 20 

By LUDOVIC HALEVY. 

L’Abbe Constantin 20 

By ROBERT HOUDIN. 


The Tricks of tne Greeks Unveiled. ..20 


By HORRY AND WEEMS. 

♦Life of Marion 20 

By Miss IIARRIE T JAY. 

The Dirk Colleen 20 

By MARION HARLAND. 
Housekeeping and Homemaking 15 

By STANLEY HUNTLEY. 
♦Spoopendyke Papers..-; 20 

By WASHINGTON IRVING. 
♦The Sketch Book 20 

By SAMUEL JOHNSON. 
Rasselas 10 

By JOHN P. KENNEDY. 

♦Horse Shoe Robinson, Part 1 15 

Part II 15 

By EDWARD KELLOGG. 

Labor and Capital 20 

By GRACE KENNEDY. 

Dunallen, Parti 15 

“ Partll 15 

By CHAS. KINGSLEY. 

♦The Hermits 20 

♦Hypatia, Part! 16 

” Partll.... 15 


By Miss MARGARET LEE. 


*Divorci.. -..20 

By henry VV. LONGFELLOW. 

*IIyperion 20 

*Oiitre Mer 20 

By SAMUEL LOVER. 

The Happy Man 10 

By lord LYTTON. 

The Comiu" Race 10 

Leila, or the Sie^e of Granada 10 

Earnest Maltravers iiO 

The Haunted House, and Calderon 

the Courtier 10 

Alice; a sequel to Earnest Maltravers.20 

A Strange S'ory 20 

♦Last Days of Pompeii 20 

Zanoni 20 

Night and Morning, Part 1 15 

Part IL 15 

Paul Clifford 20 

Lady of Lyons 10 

Money 10 

Richelieu 10 

By H. C. LUKENS, 

♦Jets and Plashes 20 

By Mks. E. LYNN LINTON, 
lone Stewart 20 

By W. E. mayo. 

The Berber 20 

By a. MATHEY. 

Duke of Kandos 20 

The Two Duchesses 20 

By JUSTIN 11. McCarthy. 

An Outline of Irish History 10 

By EDWARD MOTT. 

♦Pike County Folks 20 

By max MULLER. 

*India, what can she teach us? 20 

By Miss MULOCK. 

♦John Halifax 20 

By R. HEBER newton 
T he Rig'it and Wrong Uses of the 
Bible 20 

By W. E. NORRIS. 

♦No New Thing 20 

By OUIDA. 

♦Wanda, Part 1 15 

“ Part II 15 

♦Under Two Flags, Part 1 20 

“ “ Part II 20 

By Mrs. OLIPIIANT. 

♦The C idles Lindores 20 

By LOUISA PARR. 

Robin 20 


By JAMES PAYN. 

♦Thicker than Water 20 

By CHARLES READE. 

Single Heart and Double Face 10 

By REBECCA FERGUS REDCLIFF. 
Freckles 20 

By Sir RANDALL H. ROBERTS. 
Harry Holbrooke 20 

By Mrs. ROWSON. 

Charlotte Temple 10 

By W. CLARK RUSSELL. 

♦A Sea Queen 20 


By GEORGE SAND. 
The Tower of Percemont 

By Mrs. W. A. SAVILLE. 


Social Etiquette 15 

By MICHAEL SCOTT. 

♦Tom Cringle’s Log 20 

By EUGENE SCRIBE. 
Pieurette 20 

By J. PALGRAVE SIMPSON. 
Haun ted Hearts 10 

By gold win SMITH. D.C.L. 
False Hopes 15 

By dean SWIFT 

Gulliver’s Travels 20 

By W. M. THACKERAY. 

♦Vanity Fair, Part 1 15 

II 15 

By Judge D. P. THOMPSON. 
♦The Green Mountain Boys 20 

By THEODORE TILTON. 

Tempest Tossed, Part 1 20 

“ “ Part II ...20 

By JULES VERNE. 

*800 Leagues on the Amazon TO 

♦The Cryptogram 10 

By GEORGE WALKER. 

♦The Three Spaniards 20 

By W. M. WILLIAMS. 

Science in Short Chapters 20 

By Mrs. HENRY WOOD. 

♦East Lynne . . 20 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

Paul aud Virginia 10 

Margaret and her Bridesmaids 20 

The Queen of the County 20 

Baron Munchausen 10 



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I AM REFERRED TO CECILIA 



LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 



LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE BACHELOR OF BEAK STREET. 

Who shall be the hero of this tale ? Not I who write it. 
I am but the Chorus of‘ the Play. I make remarks on the 
conduct of the characters : I narrate their simple story. There 
is love and marriage in it : there is grief and disappointment : 
the scene is in the parlor, and the region beneath the parlor. 
No : it may be the parlor and kitchen, in this instance, are on 
the same level. There is no high life, unless, to be sure, you 
call a baronet’s widow a lady in high life ; and some ladies 
may be, while some certainly are not. I don’t think there’s a 
villain in the whole performance. There is an abominable 
selfish old woman, certainly ; an old highway robber ; an old 
sponger on other people’s kindness ; an old haunter of Bath 
and Cheltenham boarding-houses (about which how can I know 
anything, never having been in a boarding-house at Bath or 
Cheltenham in my life!*); an old swindler of tradesmen, tyrant 
of servants, bully of the poor — who, to be sure, might do duty 
for a villain, but she considers herself as virtuous a woman as 
ever was born. The heroine is not faultless (ah ! that will be 
a great relief to some folks, for many writers’ good women are, 
you know, so insipid). The principal personage you may 
very likely think to be no better than a muff. But is many a 
respectable man of our acquaintance much better? and do muffs 
know that they are what they are, or, knowing it, are they un- 
happy ? Do girls decline to marry one if he is rich ? Do we 
refuse to dine with one ? I listened to one at church last 

(7 >7) 


yi8 LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 

Sunday, with all the women crying and sobbing ; and, oh, dear 
me ! how finely he preached ! Don’t we give him great credit 
for wisdom and eloquence in the House of Commons ? Don’t 
we give him important commands in the army ? Can you, or 
can yOu not, point out one who has been made a peer ? 
Doesn’t your wife call one in the moment any of the children 
are ill ? Don’t we read his dear poems, or even novels ? Yes ; 
perhaps even this one is read and written by — Well ? Quid 
rides ? Do you mean that I am painting a portrait which hangs 
before me every morning in the looking-glass when I am 
shaving ? Aprh ? Do you suppose that I suppose that I 
have not infirmities like my neighbors ? Am I weak ? It is 
notorious to all my friends there is a certain dish I can’t 
resist : no, not if I have already eaten twice too much at dinner. 
So, dear sir, or madam, have yoic your weakness — your irre- 
sistible dish of temptation ? (for if you don’t know it, your 
friends do). No, dear friend, the chances are that you and I 
are not people of the highest intellect, of the largest fortune, of 
the most ancient family, of the most consummate virtue, of the 
most faultless beauty in face and figure. We are no heroes nor 
angels ; neither are we fiends from abodes unmentionable, 
black assassins, treacherous lagos, familiar with stabbing and 
poison — murder or amusement, daggers or playthings, arsenic 
our daily bread, lies our conversation, and forgery our common 
handwriting. No, we are not monsters of crime, or angels 
walking the earth — at least I know one of us who isn’t, as can 
be shown any day at home if the knife won’t cut or the mutton 
comes up raw. But we are not altogether brutal and unkind, 
and a few folks like us. Our poetry is not as good as Alfred 
Tennyson’s, but we can turn a couplet for Miss Fanny’s album : 
our jokes are not always first-rate, but Mary and her mother 
smile very kindly when papa tells his story or makes his pun. 
We have many weaknesses, but we are not ruffians of crime. 
No more was my friend Lovel. On the contrary, he was as 
harmless and kindly a fellow as ever lived when I first knew 
him. At present, with his changed position, he is, perhaps, 
rather fine (and certainly I am not asked to his best dinner- 
parties as I used to be, where you hardly see a commoner — 
but stay ! I am advancing matters). At the time when this 
story begins, I say, Lovel had his faults — which of us has not ? 
He had buried his wife, having notoriously been henpecked by 
her. How many men and brethren are like him ! He had a 
good fortune — I wish I had as much — though I dare say many 
people are ten times as rich. He was a good-looking fellow 


THE BACHELOR OF BEAK STREET. 


719 


enough ; though that depends, ladies, upon whether you like a 
fair man or a dark one. He had a country house, but it was 
only at Putney. In fact, he was in business in the City, and 
being a hospitable man, and having three or four spare bed- 
rooms, some of his friends were always welcome at Shrublands, 
especially after Mrs. Lovel’s death, who liked me pretty well 
at the period of her early marriage with my friend, but got to 
dislike me at last and show me the cold shoulder. That is a 
joint I never could like (though I have known fellows who 
persist in dining off it year after year, who cling hold of it, and 
refuse to be separated from it). I say, when Level’s wife began 
to show me that she was tired of my company, I made myself 
scarce: used to pretend to be engaged when Fred faintly asked 
me to Shrublands ; to accept his meek apologies, proposals to 
dine en gar^07i at Greenwich, the club, and so forth ; and never 
visit upon him my wrath at his wife’s indifference — for, after 
ail, he had been my friend at many a pinch : he never stinted 
at “ Harts’s ” or “ Lovegrove’s,” and always made a point of 
having the wine I liked, never mind what the price was. As 
for his wife, there was, assuredly, no love lost between us — I 
thought her a lean, scraggy, lackadaisical, egotistical, conse- 
quential, insipid creature : and as for his mother-in-law, who 
stayed at Fred’s as long and as often as her daughter would 
endure her, has any one whoever knew that notorious old Lady 
Baker at Bath, at Cheltenham, at Brighton, — wherever trumps 
and frumps were found together ; wherever scandal was 
cackled ; wherever fly-blown reputations were assembled, and 
dowagers with damaged titles trod over each other for the pas ; 
— ^who, I say, ever had a good word for that old woman ? 
What party was not bored where she appeared ? What trades- 
man was not done with whom she dealt ? I wish with all my 
heart I was about to narrate a story with a good mother-in-law 
for a character ; but then you know, my dear madam, all good 
women in novels are insipid. This woman certainly was 
not. She was not only not insipid, but exceedingly bad- 
tasted. She had a foul, loud tongue, a stupid head, a bad 
temper, an immense pride and arrogance, an extravagant 
son, and very little money. Can I say much more of a 
woman than this ? Aha ! my good Lady Baker ! I was a 
inauvais sujet, was I .? — I was leading Fred into smoking, 
drinking, and low bachelor habits, was 1 ? I, his old friend, 
who have borrowed money from him any time these twenty 
years, was not fit company for you and your precious daugh- 
ter Indeed! /paid the money I borrowed from him like 


720 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


a man ; but did you ever pay him, I should like to know ? 
When Mrs. Lovel was in the first column of The Times^ then 
Fred and I used to go off to Greenwich and Blackwall, as I 
said; then his kind old heart was allowed to feel for his friend ; 
then we could have the other bottle of claret without the ap- 
pearance of Bedford and the coffee, which in Mrs. L.s’ time 
used to be sent in to us before he could ring for a second 
bottle, although she and Lady Baker had had three glasses 
each out of the first. Three full glasses each, I give you my 
word ! No, madam, it was your turn to bully me once — now 
it is mine and I use it. No, you old catamaran, though you 
pretend you never read novels, some of your confounded 
good-natured friends will let you know of this one. Here 
you are, do you hear ? Here you shall be shown up. And 
so I intend to show up other women and other men who have 
offended me. Is one to be subject to slights and scorn, and 
not have revenge ? Kindnesses are easily forgotten ; but 
injuries ! — what worthy man does not keep those in mind t 

Before entering upon the present narrative, may I take 
leave to inform a candid public that, though it is all true, there 
is not a word of truth in it ; that though Lovel is alive and 
prosperous, and you very likely have met him, yet I defy you to 
point him out ; that his wife (for he is Lovel the Widower no 
more) is not the lady you imagine her to be, when you say (as 
you will persist in doing), “ Oh, that character is intended for 
Mrs. Thingamy, or was notoriously drawn from Lady So-and- 
So.” No. You are utterly mistaken. Why, even the adver- 
tizing-puffers have almost given up that stale stratagem of 
announcing “ Revelations from High Life. — The beau monde 
will be startled at recognizing the portraits of some of its 
brilliant leaders in MisS Wiggins’s forthcoming roman de sociSteT 
Or, “ We suspect a certain ducal house will be puzzled to guess 
how the pitiless author of ‘ May Fair Mysteries ’ has become 
acquainted with (and exposed with a fearless hand) certain 
family secrets which were thought only to be known to a few of 
the very highest members of the aristocracy.” No, I say ; these 
silly baits to catch an unsuspecting public shall not be our arts. 
If you choose to occupy yourself with trying to ascertain if a 
certain cap fits one amongst ever so many thdusand heads, you 
possibly pop it on the right one: but the capmaker will 
perish before he tells you ; unless, of course, he has some 
private pique to avenge, or malice to wreak, upon some indi- 
vidual who can’t by any possibility hit again ; — thcn^ indeed, he 
will come boldly forward and seize upon his victim — (a bishop, 


THE BA CHE LOT OF BEAK STREET. 


721 


say, or a woman without coarse, quarrelsome male relatives, • 
will be best) — and clap on him, or her, such a cap, with such 
ears, that all the world shall laugh at the poor wretch, shudder- 
ing, and blushing beet-root red, and whimpering deserved tears 
of rage and vexation, at being made the common butt of .society. 
Besides, I dine at Level’s still ; his company and cuisine are 
amongst the best in London. If they suspected I was taking 
them off, he and his wife would leave off inviting me. Would 
any man of a generous disposition lose such a valued friend for 
a joke, or be so foolish as to show him up in a story ? All 
persons with a decent knowledge of the world will at once 
banish the thought, as not merely base, but absurd. I am 
invited to his house one day next week : vous concei’ez I can’t 
mention the very day, for then he would find me out — and of 
course there would be no more cards for his old friend. He 
would not like appearing, as it must be owned he does in this 
memoir, as a man of not very strong mind. He believes 
himself to be a most determined, resolute person. He is quick 
in speech, wears a fierce beard, speaks with asperity to his 
servants (who liken him to a — to that before-named sable op 
ermine contrivance, in which ladies insert their hands in winter), 
and takes his wife to task so smartly, that I believe she be- 
lieves he believes he is the master of the house. “ Elizabeth, 
my love, he must mean A, or B, or D,” I fancy I hear Lovel 
say ; and she says, “ Yes ; oh ! it is certainly D — his very 
image ! ” “ D to a T,” says Lovel (who is a neat wit). S/ie 

may know that I mean to depict her husband in the above 
unpretending lines : but she will never let me know of her 
knowledge except by a little extra courtesy ; except (may I 
make this pleasing exception 1) by a few more invitations ; 
except by a look of those unfathomable eyes (gracious good- 
ness ! to think she wore spectacles ever so long, and put a lid 
over them as it were !), into which, when you gaze sometimes, 
you may gaze so deep, and deep, and deep, that I defy you to 
plumb half-way down into their mystery. 

When I was a young man, I had lodgings in Beak Street, 
Regent Street (I no more have lived in Beak Street than in 
Belgrave Square : but I choose to say so, and no gentleman 
will be so rude as to contradict another) — I had lodgings, I say 
in Beak Street, Regent Street. Mrs. Prior was the landlady’s 
name. She had seen better days — landladies frequently have. 
Her husband — he could not be called the landlord, for Mrs. 
P. was manager of the place — had been in happier times, captain 
or lieutenant in the militia ; then of Diss, in Norfolk, of no 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


722 

profession; then of Norwich Castle, a prisoner for debt ; then 
of Southampton Buildings, London, law-writer ; then of the 
Bom-Retiro Cagadores, in the service of H. M. the Queen of 
Portugal, lieutenant and paymaster ; then of Melina Place, St. 
George’s Fields, &c. — I forbear to give the particulars of an 
existence which a legal biographer has traced step by step, and 
which has more than once been the subject of judicial investiga- 
tion by certain commissioners in Lincoln’s-Inn Fields. Well, 
Prior, at this time, swimming out of a hundred shipwrecks, had 
clambered on to a lighter, as it were, and was clerk to a coal 
merchant, by the river-side. “ You conceive, sir,” he would say, 
“ my employment is only temporary — the fortune of war, the 
fortune of war ! ” He smattered words in not a few foreign 
languages. His person was profusely scented with tobacco. 
Bearded individuals, padding the muddy hoof in the neighboring 
Regent Street, would call sometimes of an evening, and ask for 
“ the captain.” He was known at many neighboring billiard- 
tables, and I imagine, not respected. You will not see enough 
of Captain Prior to be very weary of him and his coarse swagger, 
to be disgusted by his repeated requests for small money-loans, 
or to deplore his loss, which you will please to suppose has 
happened before the curtain of our present drama draws up. I 
think two people in the world were sorry for him : his wife, 
who still loved the memory of the handsome young man who 
had wooed and won her ; his daughter Elizabeth, whom for the 
last few months of his life, and up to his fatal illness, he 
every evening conducted to what he called her “ academy.” 
You are right. Elizabeth is the principal character in this story. 
When I knew her, a thin, freckled girl of fifteen, with a lean 
frock, and hair of a reddish hue, she used to borrow my books, 
and play on the First Floor’s piano, when he was from home — 
Slumley his name was. He was editor of the Swell., a news- 
paper then published ; author of a great number of popular 
songs, a friend of several music-selling houses ; and it was by 
Mr. Slumley’s interest that Elizabeth was received as a pupil 
at what the family called “ the academy.” 

Captain Prior then used to conduct his girl to the Academy, 
but she often had to conduct him home again. Having to wait 
about the premises for two, or three, or five hours sometimes, 
whilst Elizabeth was doing her lessons, he would naturally 
desire to shelter himself from the cold at some neighboring 
house of entertainment. Every Friday, a prize of a golden 
medal, nay, I believe sometimes of twenty-five silver medals, 
was awarded to Miss Bellenden and other young ladies for 


THE BACHELOR OF BEAK STREET. 


723 


their good conduct and assiduity at this academy. Miss Bell- 
enden gave her gold medal to her mother, only keeping five 
shillings for herself, with which the poor child bought gloves, 
shoes, and her humble articles of millinery. 

Once or twice the Captain succeeded in intercepting that 
piece of gold, and I dare say treated some of his whiskered 
friends, the clinking trampers of the Quadrant pavement. He 
was a free-handed fellow when he had anybody’s money in his 
pocket. It was owing to differences regarding the settlement 
of accounts that he quarrelled with the coal merchant, his very 
last employer. Bessy, after yielding once or twice to his im- 
portunity, and trying to believe his solemn promises of repay- 
ment, had strength of mind to refuse her father the pound 
which he would have taken. Her five shillings — her poor little 
slender pocket-money, the representative of her charities and 
kindnesses to the little brothers and sisters, of her little toilette 
ornaments, nay necessities ; of those well-mended gloves, of 
those oft-darned stockings, of those poor boots, which had to 
walk many a weary mile after midnight ; of those little knick- 
nacks, in the shape of brooch or bracelet, with which the poor 
child adorned her homely robe or sleeve — her poor five shillings, 
out of which Mary sometimes found a pair of shoes, or Tommy 
a flannel jacket, and little Bill a coach and horse — this wretched 
sum, this mite, which Bessy administered among so many poor 
— I very much fear her father sometimes confiscated. I 
charged the child with the fact, and she could not deny me. I 
vowed a tremendous vow, that if ever I heard of her giving 
Prior money again, I would quit the lodgings, and never give 
those children lollipop, nor pegtop, nor sixpence ; nor the pun- 
gent marmalade, nor the biting gingerbread-nut, nor the theatre- 
characters, nor the paint-box to illuminate the same ; nor the 
discarded clothes, which became smaller clothes upon the per- 
son of little Tommy and little Bill, for whom Mrs. Prior, and 
Bessy, and the little maid, cut, clipped, altered, ironed, darned, 
mangled, with the greatest ingenuity. I say, considering what 
had passed between me and the Priors — considering those 
money transactions, and those clothes, and my kindnesses to 
the children, it was rather hard that my jam-pots were poached, 
and my brandy-bottles leaked. And then to frighten her 
brother with the story of the inexorable creditor — oh, Mrs. 
Prior ! — oh, fie, Mrs. P. ! 

So Bessy went to her school in a shabby shawl, a faded 
bonnet, and a poor little lean dress flounced with the mud and 
dust of all weathers, whereas there were some other young 


724 


LOFEL THE WIDOWER, 


ladies, fellow-pupils of her, who laid out their gold medals to 
much greater advantage. Miss Delamere, with her eighteen 
shillings a week (calling them ^'‘silver medals^’’ was only my wit, 
you see), had twenty new bonnets, silk and satin dresses for 
all seasons, feathers in abundance, swan’s-down muffs and 
tippets, lovely pocket-handkerchiefs and trinkets, and many and 
many a half-crown mould of jelly, bottle of sherry, blanket, or 
what not for a poor fellow-pupil in distress ; and as for Miss 
Montanville, who had exactly the same sal — well, who had a 
scholarship of exactly the same value, viz. about fifty pounds 
yearly — she kept an elegant little cottage in the Regent’s Park, 
a brougham with a horse all over brass harness, and a groom 
with a prodigious gold lace hat-band, who was treated with 
frightful contumely at the neighboring cabstand ; an aunt or a 
mother, I don’t know which (I hope it was only an aunt), 
always comfortably dressed, and who looked after Montanville : 
and she herself had bracelets, brooches, and velvet pelisses 
of the very richest description. But then Miss Montanville 
was a good economist. She was never known to help a poor 
friend in distress, or give a fainting brother and sister a crust 
or a glass of wine. She allowed ten shillings a week to her 
father, whose name was Boskinson, said to be a clerk to a 
chapel in Paddington ; but she would never see him — no, not 
when he was in hospital, where he was so ill ; 'and though 
she certainly lent Miss Wilder thirteen pounds, she had 
Wilder arrested upon her promissory note for twenty-four, and 
sold up every stick of Wilder’s furniture, so that the whole 
academy cried shame ! Well, an accident occurred to Miss 
Montanville, for which those may be sorry who choose. On 
the evening of the 26th of December, Eighteen hundred and 
something, when the conductors of the academy were giving 
their grand annual Christmas Pant — I should say examination 
of the academy pupils before their numerous friends — Montan- 
ville, who happened to be present, not in her brougham this 
time, but in an aerial chariot of splendor drawn by doves, fell 
off a rainbow, and through the roof of the Revolving Shrine of 
the Amaranthine Queen, thereby very nearly damaging Bellen- 
den, who was occupying the shrine, attired in a light blue 
spangled dress, waving a wand, and uttering some idiotic verses 
composed for her by the Professor of Literature attached to the 
acaden^y, As for Montanville, let her go shrieking down that 
trap-door, break her leg, be taken home, and never more be 
character of ours. She never could speak. Her voice was as 
ho^rsp as a fjshwoman’s, Can that immense stout old box- 


THE BACHELOR OF BEAK STREE7\ 


725 


keeper at the theatre, who limps up to ladies on the first 

tier, and offers that horrible footstool, which everybody stumbles 
over, and makes a clumsy curtsey, and looks so knowing and 
hard, as if she recognized an acquaintance in the splendid lady 
who enters the box — can that old female be the once brilliant 
Emily Montanville ? I am told there are no lady boxkeepers 
in the English theatres. This, I submit, is a proof of my con- 
summate care and artifice in rescuing from a prurient curiosity 
.the individual personages from whom the characters of the 
present story are taken. Montanville is a box-opener. She 
may, under another name, keep a trinket-shop in the Burlington 
Arcade, for what you know ; but this secret no torture shall 
induce me to divulge. Life has its rises and its downfalls, and 
you have had yours, you hobbling old creature. Montanville, 
indeed ! Go thy ways ! Here is a shilling for thee. (Thank 
you, sir.) Take away that confounded footstool, and never let 
us see thee more ! 

Now the fairy Amarantha was like a certain dear young lady 
of whom we have read in early youth. Up to twelve o’clock, 
attired in sparkling raiment, she leads the dance with the prince 
(Gradini, known as Grady in his days of banishment at the T. 
R. Dublin). At supper, she takes her place by the prince’s 
royal father (who is alive now, and still reigns occasionally, so 
that we will not mention his revered name). She makes believe 
to drink from the gilded pasteboard, and to eat of the mighty 
pudding. She smiles as the good old irascible monarch knocks 
the prime minister and the cooks about : she blazes in splendor; 
she beams with a thousand jewels, in comparison with which 
the Koh-i-noor is a wretched lustreless little pebble : she dis- 
appears in a chariot, such as a Lord Mayor never rode in : — 
and at midnight, who is that young woman tripping homeward 
through the wet streets in a battered bonnet, a cotton shawl, 
and a lean frock fringed with the dreary winter flounces ? 

Our Cinderella is up early in the morning : she does no 
little portion of the housework : she dresses her sisters and 
brothers : she prepares papa’s breakfast. On days when she 
has not to go to morning lessons at her academy, she helps 
with the dinner. Heaven help us ! She has often brought 
mine when I have dined at home, and owns to having made 
that famous mutton-broth when I had a cold. Foreigners come 
to the house — professional gentlemen — to see Slumley on the 
first floor ; exiled captains of Spain and Portugal, companions 
of the warrior her father. It is surprising how she has learned 
their accents, and has picked up French, and Italian too. And 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


726 

she played the piano in Mr. Slumley’s room sometimes, as I 
have said ; but refrained from that presently, and from visiting 
him altogether. I suspect he was not a man of principle. His 
Paper used to make direful attacks upon individual reputations ; 
and you would find theatre and opera people most curiously 
praised and assaulted in the Swell. I recollect meeting him, 
several years after, in the lobby of the opera, in a very noisy 
frame of mind, when he heard a certain lady’s carriage called, 
and cried out with exceeding strong language, which need not 
be accurately reported, “ Look at that woman ! Confound her ! 
I made her, sir ! Got her an engagement when the family was 
starving, sir ! Did you see her, sir ? She wouldn’t even look 
at me ! ” Nor indeed was Mr. S. at that moment a very agree- 
able object to behold. 

Then I remembered that there had been some quarrel with 
this man, when we lodged in Beak Street together. If difficulty 
there was, it was solved ambulando. He quitted the lodgings, 
leaving an excellent and costly piano as security for a heavy 
bill which he owed to Mrs. Prior, and the instrument was 
presently fetched away by the music-sellers, its owners. But 

regarding Mr. S ’s valuable biography, let us speak very 

gently. You see it is “ an insult to literature ” to say that there 
are disreputable and dishonest persons who write in news- 
papers. 

Nothing, dear friend, escapes your penetration : if a joke is 
made in your company, you are down upon it instanter, and 
your smile rewards the wag who amuses you : so you knew at 
once, whilst I was talking of Elizabeth and her academy, that 
a theatre was meant, where the poor child danced for a guinea 
or five-and-twenty shillings per week. Nay, she must have had 
not a little skill and merit to advance to the quarter of a hun- 
dred ; for she was not pretty at this time, only a rough, tawny- 
haired filly of a girl, with great eyes. Dolphin, the manager, did 
not think much of her, and she passed before him in his regi- 
ment of Sea-nymphs, or Bayaderes, or Fairies, or Mazurka 
maidens (with their fluttering lances and little scarlet slyboots !) 
scarcely more noticed than private Jones standing under arms 
in his company when his Royal Highness the Field Marshal 
gallops by. There were no dramatic triumphs for Miss Bellen- 
den : no bouquets were flung at her feet : no cunning Mephis- 
topheles — the emissary of some philandering Faustus outside — 
corrupted her duenna, or brought her caskets of diamonds. 
Had there been any such admirer for Bellenden, Dolphin would 
not only not have been shocked, but he would very likely have 


THE BACHELOR OF BEAK STREET 


727 

raised her salary. As it was, though himself, I fear, a person 
of loose morals, he respected better things. “ That Bellenden’s 
a good hhonest gurl,” he said to the present writer : “ works 
hard ; gives her money to her family : father a shy old cove. 
Very good family I hear they are ! ” and he passes on to some 
other of the innumerable subjects which engage a manager. 

Now, why should a poor lodging-house keeper make such a 
mighty secret of having a daughter earning an honest guinea by 
dancing at a theatre Why persist in calling the theatre an 
academy ? Why did Mrs. Prior speak of it as such, to me who 
knew what the truth was, and to whom Elizabeth herself made 
no mystery of her calling } 

There are actions and events in its life over which decent 
Poverty often chooses to cast a veil that is not unbecoming 
wear. We can all, if we are minded, peer through this poor 
flimsy screen : often there is no shame behind it : — only empty 
platters, poor scraps, and other threadbare evidence of want 
and cold. And who is called on to show his rags to the public, 
and cry out his hunger in the street At this time (her charac- 
ter has developed itself not so amiably since), Mrs. Prior was 
outwardly respectable ; and yet, as I have said, my groceries 
were consumed with remarkable rapidity ; my wine and brandy 
bottles were all leaky, until they were excluded from air under 
a patent lock ; my Morel’s raspberry jam, of which I was pas- 
sionately fond, if exposed on the table for a few hours, was 
always eaten by the cat, or that wonderful little wretch of a 
maid-of-all-work, so active, yet so patient, so kind, so dirty, so 
obliging. Was it 7?iaid who took those groceries } I have 
seen the “ Gazza Ladra,” and know that poor little maids are 
sometimes wrongfully accused ; and besides, in my particular 
case, I own I don’t care who the culprit was. At the year’s 
end, a single man is not much poorer for this house-tax which 
he pays. One Sunday evening, being confined with a cold, and 
partaking of that mutton-broth which Elizabeth made so well, 
and which she brought me, 1 entreated her to bring from the 
cupboard, of which I gave her the key, a certain brandy-bottle. 
She saw my face when 1 looked at her : there was no mistaking 
^its agony. There was scarce any brandy left : it had all leaked 
away : and it was Sunday, and no good brandy was to be bought 
that evening. 

Elizabeth, I say, saw my grief. She put down the bottle, and 
she cried : she tried to prevent herself from doing so at first, 
but she fairly burst into tears. 

“ My dear — dear child,” says I, seizing her hand, “ you don't 
suppose I fancy you ” 


728 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


“ No — no ! ” she says, drawing the large hand over her eyes. 
“No — no ! but I saw it when you and Mr. Warrington last ’ad 
some. Oh ! do have a patting lock ! ” 

“A patent lock, my dear!” I remarked. “ How odd that 
you, who have learned to pronounce Italian and French words 
so well, should make such strange slips in English ! Your mother 
speaks well enough.” 

“ She was born a lady. She was not sent to be a milliner’s 
girl, as I was, and then among those noisy girls at that — oh I that 
place cries Bessy, in a sort of desperation, clenching her 
hand. 

Here the bells of St. Beak’s began to ring quite cheerily for 
evening service. I heard “ Elizabeth ! ” cried out from the 
lower regions by Mrs. Prior’s cracked voice. And the maiden 
went her way to church, which she and her mother never missed 
of a Sunday ; and I dare say I slept just as well without the 
brandy-and-water. 

Slumley being gone, Mrs. Prior came to me rather wist- 
fully one day, and wanted to know whether I would object to 
Madame Bentivoglio, the opera-singer, having the first floor ? 
This was too much, indeed I How was my work to go on with 
that woman practising all day and roaring underneath me 
But, after sending away so good a customer, I could not refuse 
to lend the Priors a little more money; and Prior insisted upon 
treating me to a new stamp, and making out a new and hand- 
some bill for an amount nearly twice as great as the last : which 
he had no doubt under heaven, and which he pledged his honor 
as an officer and a gentleman, that he would meet. Let me 
see : That was how many years ago ? — Thirteen, fourteen, 
twenty ? Never mind. My fair Elizabeth, I think if you saw 
your poor old father’s signature now, you would pay it. I came 
upon it lately in an old box I haven’t opened these fifteen 
years, along with some letters written — never mind by whom — 
and an old glove that I used to set an absurd value by ; and that 
emerald-green tabinet waistcoat which kind old Mrs. Macmanus 
gave me, and which I wore at the L — d L — t — nt’s ball, Ph-n-x 
Park, Dublin, once, when I danced with her there 1 Lord ! — 
Lord ! It would no more meet round my waist now than round « 
Daniel Lambert’s. How we outgrow things ! 

But as I never presented this united bill of 43/. odd (the 
first portion of 23/., &:c., was advanced by me in order to pay 
an execution out of the house) — as I never expected to have it 
paid any more than I did to be Lord Mayor of London,— I say 
it' was a little hard that Mrs. Prior should write off to her 


THE BACHELOR OF BEAK STREET. 


729 

brother (she writes a capital letter), blessing Providence that 
had given him a noble income, promising him the benefit of 
her prayers, in order that he should long live to enjoy his large 
salary, and informing him that an obdurate creditor, who shall 
be nameless (meaning me), who had Captain Prior in his power 
(as if, being in possession of that dingy scrawl, I should have 
known what to do with it), who held Mr. Prior’s acceptance for 
43/. 14.S. 4d. due on the 3rd July (my bill), would infallibly bring 
their family to ruin, unless a part of the money was paid up. 
When I went up to my old college, and called on Sargent, at 
Boniface Lodge, he treated me as civilly as if I had been an 
undergraduate ; scarcely spoke to me in hall, where, of course, 
I dined at the Fellows’ table ; and only asked me to one of 
Mrs. Sargent’s confounded tea-parties during the whole time of 
my stay. Now it was by this man’s entreaty that I went to 
lodge at Prior’s ; he talked to me after dinner one day, he 
hummed, he ha’d, he blushed, he prated in his pompous way, 
about an unfortunate sister in London — fatal early marriage — 
husband. Captain Prior, Knight of the Swan with Two Necks 
of Portugal, most distinguished officer, but imprudent specula- 
tor-advantageous lodgings in the centre of London, quiet, 
though near the Clubs — if I was ill (I am a confirmed invalid), 
Mrs. Prior, his sister, would nurse me like a mother. So, in a 
word, I went to Prior’s ; I took the rooms : I was attracted by 
some children : Amelia Jane (that little dirty maid before men- 
tioned) dragging a go-cart, containing a little dirty pair ; another 
marching by them, carrying a fourth wellnigh as big as him- 
self. These little folks, having threaded the mighty flood of 
Regent Street, debouched into the quiet creek of Beak Street, 
just as I happened to follow them. And the door at which the 
small caravan halted, — the very door I was in search of, — was 
opened by Elizabeth, then only just emerging from childhood, 
with tawny hair falling into her solemn eyes. 

The aspect of these little people, which would have deterred 
many, happened to attract me. I am a lonely man. I may 
have been ill-treated by some one once, but that is neither here 
nor there. If I had had children of my own, I think I should 
have been good to them. I thought Prior a dreadful vulgar 
wretch, and his wife a scheming, greedy little woman. But the 
children amused me : and I took the rooms, liking to hear over- 
head in the morning the patter of their little feet. The person 
I mean has several ; — husband, judge in the West Indies, 
A/ions I now you know how I came to live at Mrs. Prior’s. 

Though I am now a steady, a conjirmed old bachelor (I shall 


730 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


call myself Mr. Batchelor, if you please, in this story ; and 
there is some one far — far away who knows why I will never 
take another title), I was a gay young fellow enough once. I 
was not above the pleasures of youth : in fact, I learned quad- 
rilles on purpose to dance with her that long vacation when I 
went to read with my young friend. Lord Viscount Poldoody at 
Dub — psha ! Be still, thou foolish heart ! Perhaps I misspent 
my time as an undergraduate. Perhaps I read too many novels, 
occupied myself too much with “ elegant literature ” (that used 
to be our phrase), and spoke too often at the JJnion, where I 
had a considerable reputation. But those fine words got me 
no college prizes : I missed my fellowship ; was rather in dis- 
grace with my relations afterwards, but had a small independ- 
ence of my own, which I eked out by taking a few pupils for 
little-goes and the common degree. At length, a relation 
dying, and leaving me a further small income, I left the uni- 
versity, and came to reside in London. 

Now in my third year at college, there came to St. Boniface 
a young gentleman, who was one of the few gentleman-pension- 
ers of our society. His popularity speedily was great. A 
kindly and simple youth, he would have been liked, I dare say, 
even though he had been no richer than the rest of us ; but 
this is certain, that flattery, worldliness, mammon-worship, are 
vices as well known to young as to old boys ; and a rich lad at 
school or college has his followers, tuft-hunters, led-captains, 
little courts, just as much as any elderly millionaire of Pall Mall, 
who gazes round his club to see whom he shall take home to 
dinner, while humble trencher-men wait anxiously, thinking — 
Ah ! will he take me this time ? or will he ask that abominable 
sneak and toady Henchman again } Well — well ! this is an 
old story about parasites and flatterers. My dear good sir, I 
am not for a moment going to say that you ever were one ; and 
I dare say it was very base and mean of us to like a man chiefly 
on account of his money. “ I know ” — Fred Lovel used to say 
— “ I know fellows come to my rooms because I have a large 
allowance, and plenty of my poor old governor’s wine, and give 
good dinners : I am not deceived ; but, at least, it is pleasanter 
to come and have good dinners, and good wine, than to go to 
Jack Highson’s dreary tea and turnout ; or to Ned Roper’s 
abominable Oxbridge port.” And so I admit at once that 
Level’s parties were more agreeable than most men’s in the 
college. Perhaps the goodness of the fare,\by pleasing the 
guests, made them more pleasant. A dinner in hall, and a 
pewter plate is all very well, and I can say grace before it with 


THE BACHELOR OF BEAK STREET. 


731 

all my heart ; but a dinner with fish from London, game, and 
two or three nice little entrees, is better — and there was no bet- 
ter cook in the university than ours at St. Boniface, and ah me ! 
there were appetites then, and digestions which rendered the 
good dinner doubly good. 

Between me and young Lovel a friendship sprang up, which 
I trust, even the publication of this story will not diminish. 
There is a period, immediately after the taking of his bachelor’s 
degree, when many a university-man finds himself embarrassed. 
The tradesmen rather rudely press for a settlement of their 
accounts. Those prints we ordered calidi juventd ; those shirt- 
studs and pins which the jewellers would persist in thrusting 
into our artless bosoms ; those fine coats we would insist on 
having for our books, as well as ourselves ; all these have to be 
paid for by the graduate. And my father, who was then alive, 
refusing to meet these demands, under the — I own — just plea, 
that my allowance had been ample, and that my half-sisters 
ought not to be mulcted of their slender portions in consequence 
of my extravagance, I should have been subject to very serious 
inconvenience — nay, possibly, to personal incarceration — had 
not Lovel, at the risk of rustication, rushed up to London to his 
mother (who then had especial reasons for being very gracious 
with her son), obtained a supply of money from her, and brought 
it to me at Mr. Shackell’s horrible hotel, where I was lodged. 
He had tears in his kind eyes ; he grasped my hand a hundred 
and hundred times as he flung the notes into my lap ; and the 
recording tutor (Sargent was only tutor then), who was going to 
bring him up before the master for breach of discipline, dashed 
away a drop from his own lid, when, with a moving eloquence, 
I told what had happened, and blotted out the transaction with 
some particular old 18 ii Port, of which we freely partook in his 
private rooms that evening. By laborious instalments, I had 
the happiness to pay Lovel back. I took pupils, as I said ; I 
engaged in literary pursuits : I became connected with a literary 
periodical, and, I am ashamed to say, I imposed myself upon 
the public as a good classical scholar. I was not thought the 
less learned, when, my relative dying, I found myself in posses- 
sion of a small independency; and my “Translations from the 
Greek,” my “ Poems by Beta,” and my articles in the paper of 
which I was part proprietor for several years, have had their 
little success in their day. 

Indeed at Oxbridge, if I did not obtain university honors, 
at least I showed literary tastes. I got the prize essay one year 
at Boniface, and plead guilty to have written essays, poems, 


732 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


and a tragedy. My college friends had a joke at my expense 
(a very small joke serves to amuse those port-wine-bibbing 
fogies, and keeps them laughing for ever so long a time) — they 
are welcome, I say, to make merry at my charges — in respect of 
a certain bargain which I made on coming to London, and in 
which, had I been Moses Primrose purchasing green spectacles 
I could scarcely have been more taken in. My Jenkinson was 
an old college acquaintance, whom I was idiot enough to imagine 
a respectable man : the fellow had a very smooth tongue, and 
sleek, sanctified exterior. He was rather a popular preacher, 
and used to cry a good deal in the pulpit. He, and a queer 
wine merchant and bill-discounter, Sherrick by name, had some- 
how got possession of that neat little literary paper, the Museum, 
which, perhaps, you remember ; and this eligible literary prop- 
erty my friend Honeyman, with his wheedling tongue, induced 
me to purchase. I bear no malice : the fellow is in India now, 
where I trust he pays his butcher and baker. He was in dread- 
ful straits for money when he sold me the Museum. He began 
crying when I told him some short time afterwards that he was 
a swindler, and from behind his pocket-handkerchief sobbed a 
prayer that I should one day think better of him ; whereas my 
remarks to the same effect produced an exactly contrary im- 
pression upon his accomplice, Sherrick, who burst out laughing 
in my face, and said, “ The more fool you.” Mr. Sherrick was 
right. He was a fool, without mistake, who had any money- 
dealing with him ; and poor Honeyman was right, too ; I don’t 
think so badly of him as I did. A fellow so hardly pinched for 
money could not resist the temptation of extracting it from such 
a greenhorn. I dare say I gave myself airs as editor of that 
confounded Museum, and proposed to educate the public taste, 
to diffuse morality and sound literature throughout the nation, 
and to pocket a liberal salary in return for my services. I dare 
say 1 printed my own sonnets, my own tragedy, my own verses 
(to a Being who shall be nameless, but whose conduct has 
caused a faithful heart to bleed not a little). I dare say I wrote 
satirical articles, in which I piqued myself upon the fineness of 
my wit, and criticisms, got up for the nonce out of encyclopae- 
dias and biographical dictionaries ; so that I would be actually 
astounded at my own knowledge. I dare say I made a gaby of 
myself to the world : pray my good friend, hast thou never done 
likewise ? If thou hast never been a fool, be sure thou wilt 
never be a wise man. 

I think it was my brilliant confrere on the first floor (he had 
pecuniary transactions with Sherrick, and visited two or three 


THE BA CHE LOT OF BEAK STREET. 


733 


of her Majesty’s metropolitan prisons at that gentleman’s suit) 
who first showed me how grievously I had been cheated in the 
newspaper matter. Slumley wrote for a paper printed at our 
office. The same boy often brought proofs to both of us — a 
little bit of a puny bright-eyed chap, who looked scarce twelve 
years old, when he was sixteen ; who in wit was a man, when in 
stature he was a child, — like many other children of the poor. 

This little Dick Bedford used to sit many hours asleep on 
my landing-place or Slumley’s, whilst we were preparing our 
invaluable compositions within our respective apartments. 

S was a good-natured reprobate, and gave the child of his 

meat and his drink. I used to like to help the little man from 
my breakfast, and see him enjoy the meal. As he sat, with his 
bag on his knees, his head sunk in sleep, his little high-lows 
scarce reaching the floor, Dick made a touching little picture. 
The whole house was fond of him. The tipsy captain nodded 
him a welcome as he swaggered down stairs, stock, and coat, and 
waistcoat in hand, to his worship’s toilette in the back kitchen. 
The children and Dick were good friends ; and Elizabeth 
patronized him, and talked with him now and again, in her 
grave way. You know Clancy the composer 1 — know him better, 
perhaps, under his name of Friederich Donner ? Dormer used 
to write music to Slumley’s words, or vice versa ; and would 
come now and again to Beak Street, where he and his poet 
would try their joint work at the piano. At the sound of that 
music, little Dick’s eyes used to kindle. “ Oh, it’s prime ! ” said 
the young enthusiast. And I will say, that good-natured mis- 
creant of a Slumley not only gave the child pence, but tickets 
for the play, concerts, and so forth. Dick had a neat little suit 
of clothes at home ; his mother made him a very nice little 
waistcoat out of my undergraduate’s gown, and he and she, a 
decent woman, when in their best raiment, looked respectable 
enough for any theatre-pit in England. 

Amongst other places of public amusement which he at- 
tended, Mr. Dick frequented the academy where Miss Bellenden 
danced, and whence poor Elizabeth Prior issued forth after 
midnight in her shabby frock. And once, the Captain, Eliza- 
beth’s father and protector, being unable to walk very accurately, 
and noisy and incoherent in his speech, so that the attention of 
Messieurs of the police was directed towards him, Dick came 
up, placed Elizabeth and her father in a cab, paid the fare with 
his own money, and brought the whole party home in triumph, 
himself sitting on the box of the vehicle. I chanced to be 
coming home myself (from one of Mrs. Wateringham’s elegant 


LOVEL THE W/ DOWER. 


734 

tea soirees, in Dorset Square), and reached my door just at the 
arrival of Dick and his caravan. “ Here, cabby ! ” says Dick, 
handing out the fare, and looking with his brightest eyes. It is 
pleasanter to look at that beaming little face, than at the Cap- 
tain yonder, reeling into his house, supported by his daughter. 
Dick cried, Elizabeth told me, when, a week afterwards, she 
wanted to pay him back his shilling ; and she said he was a 
strange child, that he was. 

I revert to my friend Lovel. I was coaching Lovel for his 
degree (which, between ourselves, I think he never would have 
attained), when he suddenly announced to me, from Weymouth, 
where he was passing the vacation, his intention to quit the 
university, and to travel abroad. “ Events have happened, dear 
friend,” he wrote, “ which will make my mother’s home miser- 
able to me (I little knew when I went to town about youi 
business, what caused her wonderful complaisance to me). She 
would have broken my heart, Charles ” (my Christian name is 
Charles), “ but its wounds have found a consoler /” 

Now, in this little chapter, there are some little mysteries 
propounded, upon which, were I not above any such artifice, I 
might easily leave the reader to ponder for a month. 

1. Why did Mrs. Prior, at the lodgings, persist in calling the 
theatre at which her daughter danced the academy ? 

2. What were the special reasons why Mrs. Lovel should be 
very gracious with her son, and give him 150/. as soon as he 
asked for the money ? 

3. Why was Fred Level’s heart nearly broken ? And 4. 
Who was his consoler ? 

I answer these at once, and without the slightest attempt at 
delay or circumlocution, i. Mrs. Prior, who had repeatedly re- 
ceived money from her brother, John Erasmus Sargent, D. D., 
Master of St. Boniface College, knew perfectly well that if the 
Master (whom she already pestered out of his life) heard that 
she had sent a niece of his on the stage, he would never give 
her another shilling. 

2. The reason why Emma, widow of the late Adolphus 
Loeffel, of Whitechapel Road, sugar-baker, was so particularly 
gracious to her son, Adolphus Frederick Lovel, Esq., of St. 
Boniface College, Oxbridge, and principal partner in the house 
of Loeffel aforesaid, an infant, was that she, Emma, was about 
to contract a second marriage with the Rev. Samuel Ben- 
nington. 

3. Fred Level’s heart was so very much broken by this in- 
telligence, that he gave himself airs of Hamlet, dressed in black, 


THE BACHELOR OF BEAK STREET 


735 

vyore bis long fair hair over his eyes, and exhibited a hundred 
signs of grief and desperation : until — 

4. Louisa (widow of the late Sir Popham Baker, of Bakers- 
town, CO. Kilkenny, Baronet,) induced Mr. Lovel to take a trip 
on the Rhine with her and Cecilia, fourth and only unmarried 
daughter of the aforesaid Sir Popham Baker, deceased. 

My opinion of Cecilia I have candidly given in a previous 
page. I adhere to that opinion. I shall not repeat it. The 
subject is disagreeable to me, as the woman herself was in life. 
What Fred found in her to admire I cannot tell ; lucky for us 
all, that tastes, men, women, vary. You will never see her alive 
in this histor}^ That is her picture, painted by the late Mr. 
Gandish. She stands fingering that harp with which she has 
often driven me half mad with her “ Tara's Halls ” and her 
“ Poor Marianne.” She used to bully Fred so, and be so rude 
to his guests, that in order to pacify her, he would meanly say, 
“ Do, my love, let us have a little music ! ” and thrumpty — 
thrumpty, oif would go her gloves, and “ Tara’s Halls ” would 
begin. “ The harp that once^^^ indeed ! the accursed catgut 
scarce knew any other music, and ‘‘ once ” was a hundred times 
at least in my hearing. Then came the period when I was 
treated to the cold joint which I have mentioned ; and, not 
liking it, I gave up going to Shrublands. 

So, too, did my Lady Baker, but not of her own free will, 
mind you. She did not quit the premises because her reception 
was too cold, but because the house was made a great deal too 
hot for her. I remember Fred coming to me in high spirits, 
and describing to me, with no little humor, a great battle be- 
tween Cecilia and Lady Baker, and her ladyship’s defeat and 
flight. She fled, however, only as far as Putney village, where 
she formed again, as it were, and fortified herself in a lodging. 
Next day she made a desperate and feeble attack, presenting 
herself at Shrublands lodge gate, and threatening that she and 
sorrow would sit down before it ; and that all the world should 
know how a daughter treated her mother. But the gate was 
locked, and Barnet, the gardener, appeared behind it, saying, 
“ Since you are come, my lady, perhaps you will pay my missis 
the four-and-twenty shillings you borrowed of her.” And he 
grinned at her through the bars, until she fled before him, 
cowering. Lovel paid the little forgotten account ; the best 
four-and-twenty shillings he had ever laid out, he said. 

Eight years passed away ; during the last four of which I 
scarce saw my old friend, except at clubs and taverns, where 
we met privily, and renewed, not old warmth and hilarity, but 


LOVRL THE WIDOWER. 


736 

old kindness. One winter he took his family abroad ; Cecilia’s 
health was delicate, Lovel told me, and the doctor had advised 
that she should spend a winter in the south. He did not stay 
with them : he had pressing affairs at home ; he had embarked 
in many businesses besides the paternal sugar-bakery ; was con- 
cerned in companies, a director of a joint-stock bank, a man in 
whose fire were many irons. A faithful governess was with the 
children ; a faithful man and maid were in attendance on the 
invalid ; and Lovel, adoring his wife as he certainly did, yet 
supported her absence with great equanimity. 

In the spring I was not a little scared to read amongst the 
deaths in the newspaper ; — “ At Naples, of scarlet fever, on the 
25th ult., Cecilia, wife of Frederick Lovel, Esq., and daughter 
of the late Sir Popham Baker, Bart.” I knew what my friend’s 
grief would be. He had hurried abroad at the news of her ill- 
ness ; he did not reach Naples in time to receive the last words 
of his poor Cecilia. 

Some months after the catastrophe, I had a note from 
Shrublands. Lovel wrote quite in the old affectionate tone. 
He begged his dear old friend to go to him, and console 
him in his solitude. Would I come to dinner that evening? 

Of course I went off to him straightway. I found him in 
deep sables in the drawing-room with his children, and I confess 
I was not astonished to see my Lady Baker once more in that 
room. 

“ You seem surprised to see me here, Mr. Batchelor ? ” says 
her ladyship, with, that grace and good-breeding which she 
generally exhibited ; for if she accepted benefits, she took care 
to insult those from whom she received them. 

“ Indeed, no,” said I, looking at Lovel, who piteously hung 
down his head. He had his little Cissy at his knee : he was 
sitting under the portrait of the defunct ihusician, whose harp, 
now muffled in leather, stood dimly in the corner of the room. 

“ I am here not at my own wish, but from a feeling of duty 
towards that — departed — angel!” says Lady- Baker, pointing 
to the picture. 

“ I am sure when mamma was here, you were always quar 
relling,” says little Popham, with a scowl. 

“ This is the way those innocent children have been taught 
to regard me,” cries grandmamma. 

“ Silence, Pop,” says papa, “ and don’t be a rude boy.” 

“ Isn’t Pop a rude boy ? ” echoes Cissy. 

“Silence, Pop,” continues papa, “or you must go up to Miss 
Prior.” 


IN WHICH MISS PRIOR IS KEPT A T THE DOOR. 


737 


CHAPTER II. 

IN WHICH MISS PRIOR IS KEPT AT THE DOOR. 

Of course we all know who she was, the Miss Prior of 
Shrublands, whom papa and grandmamma called to the unruly 
children. Years had passed since I had shaken the Beak 
Street dust off my feet. The brass plate of “ Prior ” was removed 
from the once familiar door, and screwed, for what I can tell, 
on to the late reprobate owner’s coffin. A little eruption of 
mushroom-formed brass knobs I saw On the door-post when I 
passed by it last week, and Cafe des Ambassadeurs was 
thereon inscribed, with three fly-blown blue teacups, a couple 
of coffee-pots of the well-known Britannia metal, and two 
freckled copies of the Independmce Beige hanging over the 
window-blind. Were those their Excellencies the Ambassadors 
at the door, smoking cheroots ? Pool and Billiards were written 
on their countenances, their hats, their elbows. They may have 
been ambassadors down on their luck, as the phrase is. They 
were in disgrace, no doubt, at the court of her imperial majesty 
Queen Fortune. Men as shabby have retrieved their disgraces 
ere now, washed their cloudy faces, strapped their dingy waist- 
coats with cordons, and stepped into fine carriages from quarters 
not a whit more reputable than the “ Cafe des Ambassadeurs.” 
If I lived in the Leicester Square neighborhood, and kept a 
cafe, I would always treat foreigners with respect. They may 
be billiard-markers now, or doing a little shady police business ; 
but why should they not afterwards be generals and great officers 
of state 1 Suppose that gentleman is at present a barber, with 
his tongs and stick of fixature for the mustaches, how do you 
know he has not his epaulettes and his baton de 7narechal in the 
same pouch ? I see engraved on the second-floor bell, on my 
rooms, “ Plugwell.” Who can Plugwell be, whose feet now warm 
at the fire where I sat many a long evening ? And this gentle- 
man with the fur collar, the straggling beard, the frank and 
engaging leer, the somewhat husky voice, who is calling out on 
the doorstep, “Step in, and ’ave it done. Your correct likeness, 
only one shilling ” — is he an ambassador too ? Ah, no : he is 
only the charge-d^ affaires of a photographer who lives up stairs: 
no doubt where the little ones used to be. Bless me ! Pho- 
tography was an infant, and in the nursery, too, when we lived 
in Beak Street. 


47 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


73S 

Shall I own that, for old time’s sake, I went up stairs, and 
“ 'ad it done ” — that correct likeness, price one shilling ? Would 
Some One (I have said, I think, that the party in question is 
well married in a distant island) like to have the thing, I wonder, 
and be reminded of a man whom she knew in life’s prime, with 
brown curly locks, as she looked on the effigy of this elderly 
gentleman, with a forehead as bare as a billiard-ball ? 

As I went up and down that darkling stair, the ghosts of 
the Prior children peeped out from the banisters ; the little 
faces smiled in the twilight : it may be wounds (of the heart) 
throbbed and bled again, — oh, how freshly and keenly ! How 
infernally I have suffered behind that door in that room — I 
mean that one where Plugwell now lives. Confound Plugwell ! 
I wonder what that woman thinks of me as she sees me shaking 
my fist at the door ? Do you think me mad, madam ? I don’t 
care if you do. Do you think when I spoke anon of the ghosts 
of Prior’s children, I mean that any of them are dead ? None 
are, that I know of. A great hulking Bluecoat boy, with fluffy 
whiskers, spoke to me not long since, in an awful bass voice, 
and announced his name as “Gus Prior.” And “How’s Eliza- 
beth ? ” he added, nodding his bullet head. Elizabeth, indeed, 
you great vulgar boy ! Elizabeth, — and, by the way, how long 
we have been keeping her waiting ! 

You see, as I beheld her, a heap of memories struck upon 
me, and I could not help chattering ; when of course — and you 
are perfectly right, only you might just as well have left the 
observation alone : for I knew quite well what you were going 
to say — when I had much better have held my tongue. Eliza- 
beth means a history to me. She came to me at a critical period 
of my life. Bleeding and wounded from the conduct of that 
other individual (by her present name of Mrs. O’D — her present 
O'D-om^ name — I say, I will never — never call her) — desper- 
ately wounded and miserable on my return from a neighboring 
capital, I went back to my lodgings in Beak Street, and there 
there grew up a strange intimacy between me and my landlady’s 
young daughter. I told her my story — indeed, I believe I told 
anybody who would listen. She seemed to compassionate me. 
She would come wistfully into my rooms, bringing me my gruel 
and things (I could scarcely bear to eat for a while after — after 
that affair to which I may have alluded before) — she used to 
come to me, and she used to pity me, and I used to tell her all, 
and to tell her over and over again. Days and days have I 
passed tearing my heart out in that second-floor room which 
answers to the name of Plugwell now. Afternoon after after- 


IN IV/IICH MISS PRIOR IS KEPT AT THE DOOR. 739 

noon have I spent there, and poured out my story of love and 
wrong to Elizabeth, showed her that waistcoat I told you of — 
that glove (her hand wasn’t so very small either) — her letters, 
those two or three vacuous, meaningless letters, with “ My dear 
sir — Mamma hopes you will come to tea ; ” or, “ If dear Mr. 
Batchelor should be riding in the Phoenix Park near the Long 
Milestone, about 2 , my sister and I will be in the car, and,” 
<S^c. ; or, “ Oh, you kind man ! the tickets ” (she called it tickuts 
— by heaven ! she did) “ were too welcome, and the bouqiiays 
too lovely ” (this word, 1 saw, had been operated on with a 
penknife. I found no faults, not even in her spelling — then) ; 
or — never mind what more. But more of this pulmg, of this 
hu77ibug, of this bad spellmg, of this infernal jilting, swindling, 
heartless hypocrisy (all her mother’s doing, I own ; for until he 
got his place, my rival was not so well received as I was) — more 
of this RUBBISH, I say, I showed Elizabeth, and she pitied me ! 

She used to come to me day after day, and I used to talk to 
her. She used not to say much. Perhaps she did not listen ; 
but I did not care for that. On — and on — and on I would go 
with my prate about my passion, my wrongs, and despair ; and 
untiring as my complaints were, still more constant was my 
little hearer’s compassion. Mamma’s shrill voice would come 
to put an end to our conversation, and she would rise up with 
an “Oh, bother!” and go away: but the next day the good 
girl was sure to come to me again, when we would have another 
repetition of our tragedy. 

1 dare say you are beginning to suppose (what, after all, is 
a very common case, and certainly 710 co7iju7'or is wanted to 
make the guess) that out of all this crying and sentimentality, 
which a soft-hearted old fool of a man poured out to a young 
girl — out of all this whimpering and pity, something which is 
said to be akin to pity might arise. But in this, my good 
madam, you are utterly wrong. Some people have the small- 
pox twice ; I do 7iol. In my case, if a heart is broke, it’s broke : 
if a flower is withered, it’s withered. If I choose to put my 
grief in a ridiculous light, why not } why do you suppose I am 
going to make a tragedy of such an old used-up, battered, stale, 
vulgar, trivial every-day subject as a jilt who plays with a man’s 
passion, and laughs at him, and leaves him ? Tragedy indeed ! 
Oh, yes ! poison — black-edged note-paper — Waterloo Bridge — 
one more unfortunate, and so forth ! No : if she goes, let her 
go ! — si cele 7 ‘es quatit pen7ias, I puff the what-d’ye-call-it away ! 
But I’ll have no tragedy, mind you. 

Well, it must be confessed that a man desperately in love 


740 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


(as I fear I must own I then was, and a good deal cut up by 
Glorvina’s conduct) is a most selfish being : whilst women 
are so soft and unselfish that they can forget or disguise their 
own sorrows for a while, whilst they minister to a friend in 
affliction. I did not see, though I talked with her daily, on my 
return from that accursed Dublin, that my little Elizabeth was 
pale and distraite., and sad, and silent. She would sit quite 
dumb whilst I chattered, her hands between her knees, or draw 
one of them over her eyes. She would say, “ Oh, yes ! Poor 
fellow — poor fellow ! ” now and again, as giving a melancholy 
confirmation of my dismal stories ; but mostly she remained 
quiet, her head drooping towards the ground, a hand to her 
chin, her feet to the fender. 

I was one day harping on the usual string. I was telling 
Elizabeth how, after presents had been accepted, after letters 
had passed between us (if her scrawl could be called letters, if 
my impassioned song could be so construed), after everything 
but the actual word had passed our lips — I was telling Eliza- 
beth how, on one accursed day, Glorvina’s mother greeted me 
on my arrival in M-rr-n Square, by saying, “ Dear, dear Mr. 
Batchelor, we look on you quite as one of the family ! Con- 
gratulate me — congratulate my child ! Dear Tom has got his 
appointment as Recorder of Tobago ; and it is to be a match 
between him and his cousin Glory.” 

“ His cousin JV/iat.t” 1 shriek with a maniac laugh. 

“ My poor Glorvina ! Sure the children have been fond of 
each other ever since they could speak. I knew your kind heart 
would be the first to rejoice in their happiness.” 

And so, say I — ending the story — I, who thought myself 
loved, was left without a pang of pity : I, who could mention a 
hundred reasons why I thought Glorvina well disposed to me, 
was told she regarded me as an unde ! Were her letters such 
as nieces write ? Who ever heard of an uncle walking round 
Merrion Square for hours of a rainy night, and looking up to a 
bedroom window, because his nieee, forsooth, was behind it ! I 
had set my whole heart on the cast, and this was the return I 
got for it. For months she cajoles me — her eyes follow me, 
her cursed smiles welcome and fascinate me, and at a moment, 
at the beck of another — she laughs at me and leaves me ! 

At this, my little pale Elizabeth, still hanging down, cries, 
“ Oh, the villain ! the villain ! ” and sobs so that you might 
have thought her little heart would break. 

“ Nay,” said I, “ my dear, Mr. O’Dowd is no villain. His 
uncle, Sir Hector, was as gallant an old officer as any in the 


TN WHICH MISS PRIOR IS KEPT AT THE DOOR. 741 

service. His aunt was a Molloy, of Molloystown, and they are 
of excellent family, though, I believe, of embarrassed circum- 
stances ; and young Tom ” 

“ To7n ? ” cries Elizabeth, with a pale, bewildered look. 
“ His 7ianie 2vas7i't T 0771 ., dear Mr. Batchelor ; his na77iewas Woo- 
woo-illia77t ! and the tears begin again. 

Ah, my child ! my child ! my poor young creature ! and you, 
too, have felt the infernal stroke. You, too, have passed the 
tossing nights of pain — have heard the dreary hours toll — have 
looked at the cheerless sunrise with your blank sleepless eyes 
— have woke out of dreams, mayhap, in which the beloved one 
was smiling on you, whispering love-words— oh ! how sweet 
and fondly remembered ! What ! — your heart has been robbed, 
too, and your treasury is rifled and empty ! — poor girl ! And I 
looked in that sad face, and saw no grief there ! You could do 
your little sweet endeavor to soothe my wounded heart, and I 
never saw yours was bleeding ! Did you suffer more than I 
did, my poor little maid ? I hope not. Are you so young, and 
is all the flower of life blighted for you the cup without savor, 
the sun blotted, or almost- invisible over your head ? The truth 
came on me all at once : I felt ashamed that my own selfish 
grief should have made me blind to hers. 

“ What ! ” said I, “ my poor child Was it * * * ? ” and 

I pointed with my finger dow7iwards. 

She nodded her poor head. 

I knew it was the lodger who had taken the first floor 
shortly after Slumley’s departure. He was an officer in the 
Bombay Army. He had had the lodgings for three months. 
He had sailed for India shortly before I returned home from 
Dublin. 

Elizabeth is waiting all this time — shall she come in ? No, 
not yet. I have still a little more to say about the Priors. 

You understand that she was no longer Miss Prior of Beak 
Street, and that mansion, even at the time of which I write, had 
been long handed over to other tenants. The Captain dead, 
his widow with many tears pressed me to remain with her, and 
I did, never having been able to resist that kind of appeal. 
Her statements regarding her affairs were not strictly correct. 
■ — Are not women sometimes incorrect about money matters ? — 
A landlord (not unjustly indignant) quickly handed over the 
mansion in Beak Street to other tenants. The Queen’s taxes 
swooped down on poor Mrs. Prior’s scanty furniture — on hers ? 
— on mine likewise : on my neatly bound college books, em- 
blazoned with the effigy of Bonifacius, our patron, and of Bishop 


742 


LOVEL 7'HE WIDOWER. 


Budgeon, our founder ; on my elegant Raphael Morghen prints, 
purchased in undergraduate days (ye powers ! what did make 
us boys go tick for fifteen-guinea proofs of Raphael, Dying 
Stags, Duke of Wellington Banquets, and the like ?) ; my har- 
monium, at which some one has warbled songs of my composi- 
tion (I mean the words, artfully describing my passion, my 
hopes, or my despair) ; on my rich set of Bohemian glass, bought 
on the Ziel, Frankfort O. M. ; on my picture of my father, the 
late Captain Batchelor (Hoppner), R. N., in white ducks, and a 
telescope, pointing, of course, to a tempest, in the midst of 
which was a naval engagement ; on my poor mother’s miniature, 
by old Adam Buck, in pencil and pink, with no waist to speak 
of at all ; my tea and cream pots (bullion), with a hundred such 
fond knick-nacks as decorate the chamber of a lonely man. I 
found all these household treasures in possession of the myr- 
midons of the law, and had to pay the Priors’ taxes with this 
hand, before I could be redintegrated in my own property. 
Mrs. Prior could only pay me back with a widow’s tears and 
blessings (Prior having quitted a world where he had long ceased 
to be of use or ornament). The tears and blessings, I say, she 
offered me freely, and they were all very well. But why go on 
tampering with the tea-box, madam? Why put your finger — 
your finger t — your whole paw — in the jam-pot ? And it is a 
horrible fact that the wine and spirit bottles were just as leaky 
after Prior’s decease as they had been during his disreputable 
lifetime. One afternoon, having a sudden occasion to return 
to my lodgings, 1 found my wretched landlady in the very act 
of marauding sherry. She gave an hysterical laugh, and then 
burst into tears. She declared that since her poor Priors death 
she hardly knew what she said or did. She may have been 
incoherent ; she was ; but she certainly spoke truth on this 
occasion. 

I am speaking lightly — flippantly, if you please — about this 
old Mrs. Prior, with her hard, eager smile, her wizened face, 
her frowning look, her cruel voice ; and yet, goodness knows, I 
could, if I liked, be serious as a sermonizer. Why, this woman 
had once red cheeks, and was well-looking enough, and told few 
lies, and stole no sherry, and felt the tender passions of the 
heart, and I dare say kissed the weak old beneficed clergyman 
her father very fondly and remorsefully that night when 
she took leave of him to skip round to the back garden-gate 
and run away with Mr. Prior. Maternal instinct she had, 
for site nursed her young as best she could from her lean 
breast, and went about iuingrily, robbing and pilfering for them. 


IN WHICH MISS PRIOR IS KEPT A T THE DOOR. 743 

On Sundays she furbished up that threadbare black silk gown 
and bonnet, ironed the collar, and clung desperately to church. 
She had a feeble pencil-drawing of the vicarage in Dorsetshire, 
and silhouettes of her father and mother, which were hung up in 
the lodgings wherever she went. She migrated much : wherever 
she went she fastened on the gown of the clergyman of the par- 
ish ; spoke of her dear father the vicar, of her wealthy and gifted 
brother the Master of Boniface, with a reticence which implied 
that Dr. Sargent might do more for his poor sister and her family, 
if he would. She plumed herself (oh ! those poor moulting old 
plumes !) upon belonging to the clergy ; had read a good deal 
of good sound old-fashioned theology in early life, and wrote a 
noble hand, in which she had been used to copy her father’s 
sermons. She used to put cases of conscience, to present her 
humble duty to the Rev. Mr. Green, and ask explanation of 
such and such a passage of his admirable sermon, and bring 
the subject round so as to be reminded of certain quotations 
of Hooker, Beveridge, Jeremy Taylor. I think she had an old 
commonplace Book with a score of these extracts, and she 
worked them in very amusingly and dexterously into her con- 
versation. Green would be interested : perhaps pretty young 
Mrs. Green would call, secretly rather shocked at the coldness 
of old Dr. Brown, the rector, about Mrs. Prior. Between 
Green and Mrs. Prior money transactions would ensue : Mrs. 
Green’s visits would cease : Mrs, Prior was an expensive woman 
to know. I remember Pye of Maudlin, just before he “ went 
over,” was perpetually in Mrs. Prior’s back parlor with little 
books, pictures, medals, &c., &c. — you know. They called poor 
Jack a Jesuit at Oxbridge ; but one year at Rome I met him 
(with a half-crown shaved out of his head, and a hat as big as 
Don Basilio’s) ; and he said, “ My dear Batchelor, do you know 
that person at your lodgings ? I think she was an artful crea- 
ture ! She borrowed fourteen pounds of me, and I forget how 
much of — seven, I think — of Barfoot, of Corpus, just — just 
before we were received. And I believe she absolutely got 
another loan from Pummel, to be able to get out of the hands 
of us Jesuits. Are you going to hear the Cardinal ? Do — do go 
and hear him — everybody does : it’s the most fashionable thing 
in Rome.” And from this I opine that there are slyboots in 
other communions besides that of Rome. 

Now Mamma Prior had not been unaware of the love-pas- 
sages between her daughter and the fugitive Bombay captain. 
Like Elizabeth, she called Captain Walkingham “ villain ” 
readily enough ; but, if I know woman’s nature in the least 


744 


LOVEL 7'HE IV/DOIVER, 


(and I don’t), the old schemer had thrown her daughter only 
too frequently in the officer’s way, had done no small portion of 
the flirting herself, had allowed poor Bessy to receive presents 
from Captain Walkingham, and had been the manager and di- 
rectress of much of the mischief which ensued. You see, in 
this humble class of life, unprincipled mothers will coax and 
wheedle and cajole gentlemen whom they suppose to be eli- 
gible, in order to procure an establishment for their darling 
children ! What the Prioress did was done from the best 
motives of course. “ Never — never did the monster see Bessy 
without me, or one or two of her brothers and sisters, and Jack 
and dear Ellen are as sharp children as any in England ! ” pro- 
te.sted the indignant Mrs. Prior to me ; “ and if one of my boys 
had been grown up, Walkingham never would have dared to 
act as he did — the unprincipled wretch ! My poor husband 
would have punished the villain as he deserved : but what 
could he do in his shattered state of health ? Oh ! you men, — • 
you men, Mr. Batchelor ! how unprincipled you are ! ” 

“ Wh}^, my good Mrs. Prior,” said I, “you let Elizabeth 
come to my room often enough.” 

“ To have the conversation of her uncle’s friend, of an 
educated man, of a man so much older than herself ! Of 
course, dear sir! Would not a mother wish every advantage 
for her child } and whom could I trust, if not you, who have 
ever been such a friend to me and mine ? ” asks Mrs. Prior, 
wiping her dry eyes with the corner of her handkerchief, as she 
stands by my fire, my monthly bills in hand, — written in her 
neat old-fashioned writing, and calculated with that prodigal 
liberality which she always exercised in compiling the little 
accounts between us. “ Why, bless me ! ” says my cousin, little 
Mrs. Skinner, coming to see me once when I was unwell, and 
examining one of the just-mentioned documents, — “ bless me I 
Charles, you consume more tea than all my family, though we 
are seven in the parlor, and as much sugar and butter, — well, 
it’s no wonder you are bilious ! ” 

“But then, my dear, I like my tea so very strong,” said I ; 
“and you take yours uncommonly mild. I have remarked it at 
your parties.” 

“It’s a shame that a man should be robbed so,” cried 
Mrs. S. 

“ How kind it is of you to cry thieves, Flora 1 ” I reply. 

“It’s my duty, Charles! ” exclaims my cousin. “And I 
should like to know who that great, tall, gawky, red-haired girl 
in the passage is ! ” 


IN WHICH MISS PRIOR IS KEPT AT THE DOOR. 745 

Ah me ! the name of the only woman who ever had posses^ 
sion of this heart was not Elizabeth ; though I own I did think 
at one time that my little schemer of a landlady would not 
have objected if I had proposed to make Miss Prior Mrs. Batch- 
elor. And it is not only the poor and needy who have this 
mania, but the rich, too. In the very highest circles, as I am 
informed by the best authorities, this match-making goes on. 
Ah woman — woman ! — ah wedded wife ! — ah fond mother of 
fair daughters ! how strange thy passion is to add to thy titles 
that of mother-in-law ! I am told, when you have got the title, 
it is often but a bitterness and a disappointment. Very likely 
the son-in-law is rude to you, the coarse, ungrateful brute ! and 
very possibly the daughter rebels, the thankless serpent ! And 
yet you will go on scheming : and having met only with disap- 
pointment from Louisa and her husband, you will try and get 
one for Jemima, and Maria, and down even to little Toddles 
coming out of the nursery in her red shoes ! When you see 
her with little Tommy, your neighbor’s child, fighting over the 
same Noah’s ark, or clambering on the same rocking-horse, I 
make no doubt, in your fond silly head, you are thinking, 
“ Will those little people meet some twenty years hence ? ” 
And you give Tommy a very large piece of cake, and have a 
fine present for him on the Christmas tree — you know you do, 
though he is but a rude, noisy child, and has already beaten 
Toddles, and taken her doll away from her, and made her cry. 
I remember, when I myself was suffering from the conduct of a 
young woman in — in a capital which is distinguished by a vice- 
regal court — and from her heartlessness, as well as that of her 
relative, who I once thought would be my mother-in-law- 
shrieking out to a friend who happened to be spouting some 
lines from Tennyson’s “Ulysses:” — “By George! Warring- 
ton, I have no doubt that when the young sirens set their 
green caps at the old Greek captain and his crew, waving and 
beckoning him with their white arms and glancing smiles, and 
wheedling him with their sweetest pipes — I make no doubt, sir, 
that the mother sirens were behind the rocks (with their dyed 
fronts and cheeks painted, so as to resist water), and calling 
out — ‘Now, Halcyone, my child, that air from the Pirata ! 
Now, Glaukopis, dear, look well at that old gentleman at the 
helm I Bathykolpos, love, there’s a young sailor on the main- 
top, who will tumble right down into your lap if you beckon 
him ! ’ And so on — and so on.” And I laughed a wild shriek 
of despair. For I, too, have been on the dangerous island, 
and come away thence, mad, furious, wanting a strait-waistcoat. 


LOVEL THE IV/ DOWER. 


746 

And so, when a white-armed siren, named Glorvina, was 
bedevilling me with her all too tempting ogling and singing, I 
did not see at the. time, but now I know, that her artful mother 
was egging that artful child on. 

How, when the Captain died, bailiffs and executions took 
possession of his premises, I have told in a previous page, nor 
do I care to enlarge much upon the odious theme. I think the 
bailiffs were on the premises before Prior’s exit : but he did 
not know of their presence. If I had to buy them out, ’twas 
no great matter : only I say it was hard of Mrs. Prior to repre- 
sent me in the character of Shylock to the Master of Boniface. 
Well — well ! I suppose there are other gentlemen besides Mr. 
Charles Batchelor who have been misrepresented in this life. 
Sargent and I made up matters afterwards, and Miss Bessy 
was the cause of our coming together again. “ Upon my word, 
my dear Batchelor,” says he one Christmas, when I went up to 
the old college, “ I did not know how much my — ahem ! — my 
family was obliged to you ! My — ahem ! — niece, Miss Prior, 
has informed me of various acts of — ahem ! — ^generosity which 
you showed to my poor sister, and her still more wretched hus- 
band. You got my second — ahem ! — nephew — pardon me if I 
forget his Christian name — into the what-d’you-calPem — Blue- 
coat School ; you have been, on various occasions, of consider- 
able pecuniary service to my sister’s family. A man need not 
take high university honors to have a good — ahem ! — heart ; 
and, upon my word, Batchelor, I and my — ahem ! — wife are sin- 
cerely obliged to you ! ” 

“ I tell you what, Master,” said I, “ there is a point upon 
which you ought really to be obliged to me, and in which I 
have been the means of putting money into your pocket too.” 

“ I confess I fail to comprehend you,” says the Master, with 
his grandest air. 

“ I have got you and Mrs. Sargent a very good governess 
for your children, at the very smallest remuneration,” say I. 

“ Do you know the charges that unhappy sister of mine and 
her family have put me to already ? ” says the Master, turning 
as red as his hood. 

“ They have formed the frequent subject of your conversa- 
tion,” I replied. “You have had Bessy as a governess * * *” 

“ A nursery governess — she has learned Latin, and a great 
deal more, since she has been in my house ! ” cries the 
Master. 

“ A nursery governess at the wages of a housemaid,” I 
continued, as bold as Corinthian brass. 


fN WHICH MISS PRIOR IS KEPT AT THE DOOR. 747 

Does my niece, does my — ahem ! — children’s gov’^erness, 
complain of my treatment in my college ?” cries the Master. 

“My dear Master,” I asked, “you don’t suppose I would 
have listened to her complaints, or, at any rate, have repeated 
them, until now?” 

“ And why now, Batchelor, I should like to know ? ” says 
the Master, pacing up and down his study in a fume, under the 
portraits of Holy Bonifacius, Bishop Budgeon, and all the 
defunct bigwigs of the college. “ And why now, Batchelor, I 
should like to know ? ” says he. 

“ Because — though after staying with you for three years, 
and having improved herself greatly, as every woman must in 
your society, my dear Master, Miss Prior is worth at least fifty 
guineas a year more than you give her — I would not have had 
her speak until she had found a better place.” 

“ You mean to say she proposes to go away ? ” 

“ A wealthy friend of mine, who was a member of our col- 
lege by the way, wants a nursery governess, and I have recom- 
mended Miss Prior to him, at seventy guineas a year.” 

“ And pray who’s the member of my college who will give 
my niece seventy guineas ? ” asks the Master, fiercely. 

“You remember Lovel, the gentleman-pensioner? ” 

“ The sugar-baking man — the man who took you out of 
ja * *?” 

“ One good turn deserves another,” says I, hastily. “ I 
have done as much for some of your family, Sargent ! ” 

The red Master, who had been rustling up and down his 
study in his gown and bands, stopped in his walk as if I had 
struck him. He looked at me. He turned redder than ever. 
He drew his hand over his eyes. “Batchelor,” says he, “I 
ask your pardon. It was I who forgot myself — may heaven 
forgive me ! — forgot how good you have been to my family, to 
my — ahem ! — humble family, and — and how devoutly thankful 
I ought to be for the protection which they have found in you.” 
His voice quite fell as he spoke ; and of course any little wrath 
which I might have felt was disarmed before his contrition. 
We parted the best friends. He not only shook hands with 
me at the study door, but he actually followed me to the hall- 
door, and shook hands at his lodge porch, sub Jove., in the 
quadrangle. Huckles, the tutor (Highlow Huckles we used to 
call him in our time), and Botts (Trumperian professor), who 
happened to be passing through the court at the time, stood 
aghast as they witnessed the phenomenon. 

“ I say, Batchelor,” asks Huckles, “ have you been made a- 
marquis by any chance ? ” 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


74S 

“ Why a marquis, Huckles ? ” I ask. 

“ Sargent never comes to his lodge door with any man 
under a marquis,” says Huckles, in a low whisper. 

“ Or a pretty woman,” says that Botts (he will have his 
joke.) “ Batchelor, my elderly Tiresias, are you turned into a 
lovely young lady par hasard I ” 

“Get along, you absurd Trumperian professor!” say I. 
But the circumstance was the talk not only in Compotation 
Room that evening over our wine, but of the whole college. 
And further, events happened which made each man look at 
his neighbor with wonder. For that whole term Sargent did 
not ask our nobleman Lord Sackville (Lord Wigmore’s son) to 
the lodge. (Lord W.’s father, you know, Duff, was baker to 
the college.) For that whole term he was rude but twice to 
Perks, the junior tutor, and then only in a very mild way : and 
what is more, he gave his niece a present of a gown, of his 
blessing, of a kiss, and a high character, when she went away ; 
— and promised to put one of her young brothers to school — 
which promise, I need not say, he faithfully kept : for he has 
good principles, Sargent has. He is rude : he is ill-bred : he is 
bumptious beyond almost any man I ever knew : he is spoiled 
not a little by prosperity ; — but he is magnanimous : he can 
own that he has been in the wrong ; and oh me ! what a 
quantity of Greek he knows ! 

Although my late friend the Captain never seemed to do 
aught but spend the family money, his disreputable presence 
somehow acted for good in the household. “ My dear husband 
kept our family together,” Mrs. Prior said, shaking her lean 
head under her meagre widow’s cap. “ Heaven knows how I 
shall provide for these lambs now he is gone.” Indeed, it was 
not until after the death of that tipsy shepherd that the wolves 
of the law came down upon the lambs — myself included, who 
have passed the age of lambhood and mint sauce a long time. 
They came down upon our fold in Beak Street, I say, and 
ravaged it. What was I to do ? Could I leave that widow and 
children in their distress .? I was not ignorant of misfortune, 
and knew how to succor the miserable. Nay, I think, the 
little excitement attendant upon the seizure of my goods, &c., 
the insolvent vulgarity of the low persons in possession — with 
one of whom I was very near coming to a personal encounter 
— and other incidents which occurred in the bereft household, 
served to rouse me, and dissipate some of the languor and 
misery under which I was suffering in consequence of Miss 
Mulligan’s conduct to me. I know I took the late Captain ta 


IN WHICH MISS PRIOR IS KEPT A T THE DOOR. 749 

his final abode. My good friends the printers of the Museum 
took one of his boys into their counting-house. A blue coat 
and a pair of yellow stockings were procured for Augustus ; 
and seeing the Master’s children walking about in Boniface 
gardens with a glum-looking old wretch of a nurse, I bethought 
me of proposing to him to take his niece Miss Prior — and, 
heaven be good to me ! never said one word to her uncle about 
Miss Bellenden and the Academy. I dare say I drew a number 
of long bows about her. I managed about the bad grammar 
pretty well, by lamenting that Elizabeth’s poor mother had 
been forced to allow the girl to keep company with ill-educated 
people : and added, that she could not fail to mend her English 
in the • house of one of the most distinguished scholars in 
Europe, and one of the best-bred women. I did say so, upon 
my word, looking that half-bred, stuck-up Mrs. Sargent gravely 
in the face ; and I humbly trust, if that bouncer has been 
registered against me, the Recording Angel will be pleased to 
consider that the* motive was good, though the statement was 
unjustifiable. But I don’t think it was the compliment : I 
think it was the temptation of getting a governess for next to 
nothing that operated upon Madam Sargent. And so Bessy 
went to her aunt, partook of the bread of dependence, and 
drank of the cup of humiliation, and ate the pie of humility, 
and brought up her odious little cousins to the best of her small 
power, and bowed the head of hypocrisy before the don her 
uncle, and the pompous little upstart her aunt. She the best- 
bred woman in England, indeed I She, the little vain skin- 
flint ! 

Bessy’s mother was not a little loth to part with the fifty 
pounds a year which the child brought home from the Academy ; 
but her departure thence was inevitable. Some quarrel had 
taken place there, about which the girl did not care to talk. 
Some rudeness had been offered to Miss Bellenden, to which 
Miss Prior was determined not to submit : or was it that she 
wanted to go away from the scenes of her own misery, and to 
try and forget that Indian Captain } Come, fellow-sufferer ! 
Come, child of misfortune, come hither ! Here is an old bache- 
lor who will weep with thee tear for tear ! 

I protest here is Miss Prior coming into the room at last. A 
pale face, a tawny head of hair combed back, under a black 
cap : a pair of blue spectacles, as I live ! a tight mourning 
dress, buttoned up to her white throat ; a head hung meekly 
down : such is Miss Prior. She takes my hand when I offer it. 
She drops me a demure little curtsey, and answers my many 


75 ° 


LOVEL TIIK WIDOWER. 


questions with humble monosyllabic replies. She appeals com 
stantly to Lady Baker for instruction, or for confirmation of 
her statements. What ! have six years of slavery so changed 
the frank darling young girl whom I remember in Beak Street ? 
She is taller and stouter than she was. She is awkward and 
high-shouldered, but surely she has a very fine figure. 

“ Will Miss Cissy and Master Popham have their teas here 
or in the school-room ? ” asks Bedford, the butler, of his master. 
Miss Prior looks appealingly to Lady Baker. 

“ In the sch ” Lady Baker is beginning. 

“ Here — here ! ” bawl out the children. “ Much better fun 
down here : and you’ll send us some fruit and things from din- 
ner, papa ! ” cries Cissy. 

“ It’s time to dress for dinner,” says her ladyship. 

“ Has the first bell rung ? ” asks Lovel. 

“Yes, the first bell has rung, and grandmamma must go, for 
it always takes her a precious long time to dress for dinner ! ” 
cries Pop. And, indeed, on looking at Lady Baker, the con- 
noisseur might perceive that her ladyship was a highly compo- 
site person, whose charms required very much care and arrange- 
ment. There are some cracked old houses where the painters 
and plumbers and puttyers are always at work. 

“ Have the goodness to ring the bell ! ” she says, in a ma- 
jestic manner, to Miss Prior, though I think Lady Baker herself 
was nearest. 

I sprang towards the bell myself, and my hand meets Eliza- 
beth’s there, who was obeying her ladyship’s summons, and 
who retreats, making me the demurest curtsey. At the sum- 
mons, enter Bedford the butler (he was an old friend of mine 
too) and young Buttons, the page under that butler. 

Lady Baker points to a heap of articles on a table, and says 
to Bedford : “ If you please, Bedford, tell my man to give those 
things to Pincott, my maid, to be taken to my room.” 

“ Shall not I take them up, dear Lady Baker 1 ” says Miss 
Prior. 

But Bedford, looking at his subordinate, says: “Thomas! 
tell Bulkeley, her ladyship’s man, to take her ladyship’s things 
and give them to her ladyship’s maid.” There wW a tone of 
sarcasm, even of parody, in Monsieur Bedford’s voice ; but his 
manner was profoundly grave and respectful. Drawing up her 
person, and making a motion, I don’t know whether of polite- 
ness or defiance, exit Lady Baker, followed by page, bearing 
bandboxes, shawls, paper parcels, parasols — I know not what.' 
Dear Popham stands on his head as grandmamma leaves the 


IN WHICH MISS PRIOR IS KEPT A T THE POOR, 

room. “ Don’t be vulgar ! ” cries little Cissy (the dear child is 
always acting as a little Mentor to her brother). “ I shall, if I 
like,” says Pop ; and he makes faces at her. 

“You know your room. Batch?” a^s the master of the 
house. 

“ Mr. Batchelor’s old room — always has the blue room,” 
says Bedford, looking very kindly at me. 

“ Give us,” cries Lovel, “ a bottle of that Sau ” 

“ terne Mr. Batchelor used to like. ChMeau Yquem. 

All right ! ” says Mr. Bedford. “ How will you have the turbot 
done you brought down ? — Dutch sauce ^ — Make lobster into 
salad ? Mr. Bonnington likes lobster-salad,” says Bedford. 
Pop is winding up the butler’s back at this time. It is evident 
Mr. Bedford is a privileged person in the family. As he had 
entered it on my nomination several years ago, and had been 
ever since the faithful valet, butler, and major-domo of Lovel, 
Bedford and I were always good friends when we met. 

“ By the way, Bedford, why wasn’t the barouche sent for me 
to the bridge ? ” cries Lovel. “ I had to walk all the way 
home, with a batt and stumps for Pop, with the basket of fish, 
and that bandbox with my lady’s ” 

“ He — he ! ” grins Bedford. 

“ ‘ He — he ! ’ Confound you, why do you stand grinning 
there ? Why didn’t I have the carriage, I say ? ” bawls the 
master of the house. 

“ Voii know, sir,” says Bedford. “ S/ie had the carriage.” 
And he indicated the door through which Lady Baker had just 
retreated. 

“ Then why didn’t I have the phaeton ? ” asks Bedford’s 
master. 

“ Your Ma and Mr. Bonnington had the phaeton.” 

“And why shouldn’t they, pray? Mr. Bonnington is lame : 
I’m at my business all day. I should like to know why they 
shouliMt have the phaeton ? ” says Lovel, appealing to me. As 
we had been sitting talking together previous to Miss Prior’s 
appearance. Lady Baker had said to Lovel, “ Your mother and 
Mr. Bonnington are coming to dinner of course, Frederick ? ” 
and Lovel had said, “Of course they are,” with a peevish blus- 
ter, whereof I now began to understand the meaning. ^ The 
fact was, these two women were fighting for the possession of 
this child ; but who was the Solomon to say which should have 
him ? Not I. Nenni. I put my oar in no man’s boat. Give 
me an easy life, mv dear friends, and row me gently over. 

“ You had better go and dress,” says Bedford sternly, look- 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


752 

ing at his master ; “ the first bell has rung this quarter of an 
hour. Will you have some ’34 'i ” 

Lovel started up \ he looked at the clock. “You are all 
ready, Batch, I see. I hope you are going to stay some time, 
ain’t you ? ” And he disappeared to array himself in his sables 
and starch. I was thus alone with Miss Prior and her young 
charges, who resumed straightway their infantine gambols and 
quarrels. 

“ My dear Bessy ! ” I cry, holding out both hands, “ I am 
heartily glad to ” 

“ Ne m’appelez que de mon nom paternel devant tout ce 
monde s’il vous plait, mon cher ami, mon bon protecteur ! ” she 
says, hastily, in very good French, folding her hands and mak- 
ing a curtsey. 

“ Oui, oui, oui! Parlez-vous Fran9ais ? J’aime, tu aimes, 
il aime ! ” cries out dear Master Popham. “ What are you 
talking about ? Here’s the phaeton ! ” and the young innocent 
dashes through the open window on to the lawn, whither he is 
followed by his sister, and where we see the carriage containing 
Mr. and Mrs. Bonnington rolling over the smooth walk. 

Bessy advances towards me, and gives me readily enough 
now the hand she had refused anon. 

“ I never thought you would have refused it, Bessy,” said I. 

“ Refuse it to the best friend I ever had ! ” she says, press- 
ing my hand. “ Ah, dear Mr. Batchelor, what an ungrateful 
wretch I should be, if I did ! ” 

“ Let me see your eyes. Why do you wear spectacles ? You 
never wore them in Beak Street,” I say. You see I was very 
fond of the child. She had wound herself around me in a 
thousand fond ways. Owing to a certain Person’s conduct my 
heart may be a ruin — a Persepolis, sir — a perfect Tadmor. But 
what then ? May not a traveller rest under its shattered 
columns ? May not an Arab maid repose there till the morn- 
ing dawns and the caravan passes on.? Yes, my heart is a 
Palmyra, and once a Queen inhabited me (O Zenobia ! Zenobia ! 
to think thou should’st have been led away captive by an 
O’D — !) Now, I am alone, alone in the solitary wilderness. 
Nevertheless, if a stranger comes to me I have a spring for his 
weary feet, I will give him the shelter of my shade. Rest thy 
cheek awhile, young maiden, on my marble — then go thy ways 
and leave me. 

This I thought, or something to this effect, as in reply to 
my remark, “ Let me see your eyes,” Bessy took off her spec- 
tacles, and I took them up and looked at her. Why didn’t I 


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AV WHICH MJSS PRIOR IS A HPT A I' THE DOOR. 7-3 

say to her, “ My dear brave Elizabeth ! as 1 look in your 
face, I see you have had an awful deal of suffering. Your 
eyes are inscrutably sad. We who are initiated, know the 
members of our Community of Sorrow. We have both been 
wrecked in different ships, and been cast on this shore. 
Let us go hand-in-hand, and find a cave and a shelter 
somewhere together ? ” I say, why didn’t I say this to 
her? She would have come, I feel sure she would. We 
would have been semi-attached as it were. We would have 
locked up that room in either heart where the skeleton was, 
and said nothing about it, and pulled down the party-wall and 
taken our mild tea in the garden. I live in Pump Court now. 
It would have been better than this dingy loneliness and a 
snuffy laundress who bullies me. But for Bessy ? Well — well, 
perhaps better for her too. 

I remember these thoughts rushing through my mind whilst 
I held the spectacles. What a number of other things too ? I 
remember two canaries making a tremendous concert in their 
cage. I remember the voices of the two children quarrelling 
on the lawn, the sound of the carriage wheels grinding over the 
gravel ; and then of a little old familiar cracked voice in my 
ear, with a “ La, Mr. Batchelor ! are you here ? ” And a sly 
face looks up at me from under an old bonnet. 

“ It is mamma,” says Bessy. 

“ And I’m come to tea with Elizabeth and the dear children ; 
and while you are at dinner, dear Mr. Batchelor, thankful — 
thankful for all mercies ! xA.nd, dear me ! here is Mrs. Bon- 
nington, I do declare ! Dear madam, how well you look — not 
twenty, I dedare ! And dear Mr. Bonnington ! Oh, sir ! let 
me — let me, I fnust press your hand. What a sermon last 
Sunday ! All Putney was in tears ! ” 

And the little woman, flinging out her lean arms, seizes 
portly Mr. Bonnington’s fat hand : as he and kind Mrs. Bon- 
nington enter at the open casement. The little woman seems 
inclined to do the honors of the house. “ And won’t you go 
up stairs, and put on your cap ? Dear me, what a lovely ribbon ! 
How blue does become Mrs. Bonnington ! I always say so to 
Elizabeth,” she cries, peeping into a little packet which Mrs. 
Bonnington bears in her hand. After exclianging friendly 
words and greetings with me, that lady retires to put the lovely 
cap on, followed by her little jackall of an aide-de-camp. The 
portly clergyman surveys his pleased person in the spacious 
mirror. “ Your things are in your old room — like to go in, and 
brush up a bit ? ” whispers Bedford to me. I am obliged to go. 


754 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


you see, though, for my part, I had thought, until Bedford spoke, 
that the ride on the top of the Putney omnibus had left me 
without any need of brushing ; having aired my clothes, and 
given my young cheek a fresh and agreeable bloom. 

My old room, as Bedford calls it, was that snug apartment 
communicating by double doors with the drawing-room, and 
whence you can walk on to the lawn out of the windows. 

“ Here’s your books, here’s your writing-paper,” says Bed- 
ford, leading the way into the chamber. “ Does sore eyes good 
to down here again, sir. You may smoke now. Clarence 

Baker smokes when he comes. Go and get some of that wine 
you like for dinner.” And the good fellow’s eyes beam kind- 
ness upon me as he nods his head, and departs to superintend 
the duties of his table. Of course you understand that this 
Bedford was my young printer’s boy of former days. What a 
queer fellow ! I had not only been kind to him, but he was 
grateful. 


CHAPTER III. 

IN WHICH I PLAY THE SPY. 

The room to which Bedford conducted me I hold to be the 
very pleasantest chamber in all the mansion of Shrublands. To 
lie on that comfortable cool , bachelor’s bed ther®«, and see the 
birds hopping about on the lawn ; to peep out of the French 
window at early morning, inhale the sweet air, mark the dewy 
bloom on the grass, listen to the little warblers performing their 
chorus, step forth in your dressing-gown and slippers, pick a 
strawberry from the bed, or an apricot in its season ; blow one, 
two, three, just half a dozen puffs of a cigarette ; hear the 
venerable towers of Putney toll the hour of six (three hours 
from breakfast, by consequence), and pop back into bed again 
with a favorite novel, or review, to set you off (you see I am 
not malicious, or I could easily insert here the name of some 
twaddler against whom I have a grudgekin) : to pop back into 
bed again, I say, with a book which sets you off into that dear, 
invaluable second sleep, by which health, spirits, appetite are 
so prodigiously improved ; — all these 1 hold to be most cheer- 
ful and harmless pleasures, and have partaken of them often 


IN WHICH I PL A y THE SPY. 


755 

at Shrublancls with a grateful heart. That heart may have had 
its griefs, but is yet susceptible of enjoyment and consolation. 
That bosom may have been lacerated, but is not therefore and 
henceforward a stranger to comfort. After a certain affair in 
Dublin — nay, very soon after, three months after — I recollect 
remarking to myself : “ Well, thank my stars, I still have a 
relish for ’34 claret.” Once at Shrublands I heard steps pacing 
overhead at night, and the feeble but continued wail of an infant. 
I wakened from my sleep, was sulky, but turned and slept 
again. Biddlecombe the barrister I knew was the occupant of 
the upper chamber. He came down the next morning looking 
wretchedly yellow about the cheeks, and livid round the eyes. 
His teething infant had kept him on the march all night, and 
Mrs. Biddlecombe, I am told, scolds him frightfully besides. 
He munched a shred of toast, and was off by the omnibus to 
chambers. I chipped a second egg ; I may have tried one or 
two other nice little things on the table (Strasbourg pate I know 
I never can resist, and am convinced it is perfectly wholesome). 
I could see my own sweet face in the mirror opposite, and my 
gills were as rosy as any broiled salmon. “ Well — well ! ” I 
thought, as the barrister disappeared on the roof of the coach, 
“ he has dovius and placens uxor — but is she placens 2 Placeine 
to walk about all night with a roaring baby ? Is it pleasing to 
go to bed after a long hard day’s work, and have your wife 
nagging you because she has not been invited to the Lady 
Chancelloress’s soirh., or what not ? Suppose the Glorvina 
whom you loved so had been yours ? Her eyebrows looked as 
if they could scowl, her eyes as if they could flash with anger. 
Remember what a slap she gave the little knife-boy for upsetting 
the butter-boat over her tabinet. Suppose parvulus aiHd, a 
little Batchelor your son, who had the toothache all night in 
your bedroom ?” These thoughts passed rapidly through my 
mind as I helped myself to the comfortable meal before me. “ I 
say, what a lot of muffins you’re eating ! ” cried innocent 
Master Lovel. Now the married, the wealthy, the prosperous 
Biddlecombe only took his wretched scrap of dry toast. “Aha ! ” 
you say, “ this man is consoling himself after his misfortune.” 
O churl ! and do you grudge me consolation ? “ Thank you, 

clear Miss Prior. Another cup, and plenty of cream, if you 
please.” Of course. Lady Baker was not at table when I said, 
“ Dear Miss Prior,” at breakfast. Before her ladyship I was 
as mum as a mouse. Elizabeth found occasion to wJiisper to 
me during the day, in her demure way : “ This is a very rare 
occasion. Lady B never allows me to breakfast alone. 


LOVKL THE WIDOWER. 


756 

with Mr. Lovel, but has taken her extra nap, 1 suppose, because 
you and Mr. and Mrs. Biddlecombe were here.” 

Now it may be that one of the double doors of the room 
which I inhabited was occasionally open, and that Mr. Batche- 
lor’s eyes and ears are uncommonly quick, and note a number 
of things which less observant persons would never regard or 
discover ; but out of this room, which I occupied for some few 
days, now and subsequently, I looked forth as from a little 
ambush upon the proceedings of the house, and got a queer 
little insight into the history and characters of the personages 
round about me. The two grandmothers of Lovel’s children 
were domineering over that easy gentleman, as women — not 
grandmothers merely, but sisters, wives, aunts, daughters, when 
the chance is given them — will domineer. Ah! Glorvina, 
what a gray mare you might have become had you chosen Mr. 
Batchelor for your consort ! (But this I only remark with a 
parenthetic sigh.) The two children had taken each the side 
of a grandmamma, and whilst Master Pop was declared by his 
maternal grandmother to be a Baker all over, and taught to 
despise sugar-baking and trade, little Cecilia was Mrs. Ben- 
nington’s favorite, repeated Watt’s hymns with fervent preco- 
city ; declared that she would marry none but a clergyman ; 
preached infantine sermons to her brother and maid about 
worldliness ; and somewhat wearied me, if the truth must be 
told, by the intense self-respect with which she regarded her 
own virtues. The old ladies had that love for each other, 
which one may imagine that their relative positions would 
engender. Over the bleeding and helpless bodies of Lovel and 
his worthy and kind stepfather, Mr. Bonnington, they skir- 
mished, and fired shots at each other. Lady B would give 

hints about second marriages, and second families, and so 
forth, which of course made Mrs. Bonningtorl wince. Mrs. 

B had the better of Lady Baker, in consequence of the 

latter’s notorious pecuniary irregularities. She had never had 
recourse to her son’s purse, she could thank heaven. She was 
not afraid of meeting any tradesman in Putney or London : she 
had never been ordered out of the house in the late C ecilia’s 
lifetime : she could go to Boulogne and enjoy the f) jsh air 
there. This was the terrific whip she had over Baker. ' Ladv 
B , I regret to say, in consequence of the failure i i remit- 

tances, had been locked up in prison, just at a time wl.en she 
was in a state of violent quarrel with her late daughier, and 
good Air. Bonnington had helped her out of durance. How 
did I know this? Bedford, Lovel’s factotum, told me: and 
how the old ladies were fighting like two cats. 


IN WHICH I PL A y THE SPY. 


757 

There was one point on which the two ladies agreed. A 
very wealthy widower, young still, good-looking, and good- 
tempered, we know can sometimes find a dear woman to con- 
sole his loneliness, and protect his motherless children. From 
the neighboring Heath, from Wimbledon, Roehampton, Barnes, 
Mortlake, Richmond, Esher, Walton, Windsor, nay, Reading, 
Bath, Exeter, and Penzance itself, or from any other quarter of 
Britain, over which your fancy may please to travel, families 
would have come ready with dear young girls to take charge of 
that man’s future happiness ; but it is a fact that these two 
dragons kept all women off from their ward. An unmarried wo- 
man, with decent good looks, was scarce ever allowed to enter 
Shrublandsgate. If such an one appeared. Level’s two mothers 
sallied out, and crunched her hapless bones. Once or twice 
he dared to dine with his neighbors, but the ladies led him 
such a life that the poor creature gave up the practice, and 
faintly announced his preference for home. “ My dear Batch,” 
says he, “ what do I care for the dinners of the people round 
about ? Has any one of them got a better cook or better wine 
than mine ? When I come home from business, it is an intol- 
erable nuisance to have to dress and go out seven or eight 
miles to cold entrees^ and loaded claret, and sweet port. I 
I can’t stand it, sir. I won't stand it ” (and he stamps his foot 
in a resolute manner). “ Give me an easy life, a wine merchant 
1 can trust, and my own friends, by my own fireside. Shall we 
have some more "i We can manage another bottle between us 
three, Mr. Bonnington ” 

“ Well,” says Mr. Bonnington, winking at the ruby goblet, 
“I am sure I have no objection, Frederick, to another bo ” 

“ Coffee is served, sir, cries Bedford, entering. 

“Well — well, perhaps we have had enough,” says worthy 
Bonnington. 

“ We have had enough ; we all drink too much,” says Lovel, 
briskly. “ Come in to coffee.” 

We go to the drawing-room. Fred and I, and the two 
ladies, sit down to a rubber, whilst Miss Prior plays a piece of 
Beethoven to a slight warbling accompaniment from Mr. Ben- 
nington’s handsome nose, who has fallen asleep over the new.s- 
paper. During our play, Bessy glides out of the room — a gray 
shadow. Bonnington wakens up when the tray is brought in. 
Lady Baker likes that good old custom : it was always the 
fashion at the Castle, and she takes a good glass of negus too ; 
and so do we all ; and the conversation is pretty merry, and 
Fred Lovel hopes I shall sleep better to-night, and is very 


LOVEL THE IVJ DOWER. 


758 

facetious about poor Bicldlecombe, and the way in which that 
eminent Q. C. is henpecked by his wife. 

From my bachelor’s room, then, on the ground floor ; or 
from my solitary walks in the garden, whence I could oversee 
[many things in the house; or from Bedford’s communications 
!to me, which were very friendly, curious, and unreserved; or 
from my own observation, which I promise you can see as far 
‘into the millstones of life as most folks, I grew to find the 
mysteries of Shrublands no longer mysterious to me ; and, like 
another Diable Boiteux, had the roofs of a pretty number of 
the Shrublxnds rooms taken off for me. 

For instance, on that very first day of my stay, whilst the 
family were attiring themselves for dinner, I chanced to find 
two secret cupboards of the house unlocked, and the contents 
unveiled to me. Pinhorn, the children’s maid, a giddy little 
flirting thing in a pink ribbon, brought some articles of the 
toilette into my worship’s apartment, and as she retired did not 
shut the door behind her. I might have thought that pert 
little head had never been made to ache by any care ; but ah ! 
black care sits behind the horseman as Horace remarks, and 
not only behind the horseman, but behind the footman ; and 
not only on the footman, but on the buxom shoulders of the 
lady’s-maid. So with Pinhorn. You surely have remarked 
’■especting domestic servants that they address you in a tone 
utterly affected and unnatural — adopting, when they are 
amongst each other, voices and gestures entirely different to 
those which their employers see and hear. Now, this little 
Pinhorn, in her occasional intercourse with your humble ser- 
vant, had a brisk, quick, fluttering toss of the head, and a frisky 
manner, no doubt capable of charming some persons. As for 
me, ancillary allurements have, I own, had but small tempta- 
tions. If Venus brought me a bedroom candle and a jug of 
hot water, I should give her sixpence, and no more. Having, 

you see, given my all to one worn Psha ! never mind that 

old story. — Well, I dare say this little creature may have been 
a flirt, but I took no more notice of»her than if she had been a 
coal-scuttle. 

Now, suppose she was a flirt. Suppose, under a mask of 
levity, she hid a profound sorrow. Do you suppose she was 
the first woman who has done so ? Do you suppose because 
she has fifteen pounds a year, her tea, sugar, and beer, and 
told fibs to her masters and mistresses, she has not a heart ? 
She went out of the room, absolutely coaxing and leering at 
me as she departed, with a great counterpane over her arm ; 


m IVmCH I PL A V THE SPY, 


759 

but in the next apartment I heard her voice quite changed, and 
another changed voice too — though not so much altered — in- 
terrogating her. My friend Dick Bedford’s voice, in address- 
ing those whom Fortune had pleased to make his superiors, 
was gruff and brief. He seemed to be anxious to deliver him- 
self of his speech to you as quickly as possible ; and his tone 
always seemed to hint, “There — there- is my message, and I 
have delivered it ; but you know perfectly well that I am as 
good as you.” And so he was, and so I always admitted : so 
even the trembling, believing, flustering, suspicious Lady Baker 
herself admitted, when she came into communication with this 
man. I have thought of this little Dick as of Swift at Sheen 
hard by, with Sir William Temple : or Spartacus when he was 
as yet the servant of the fortunate Roman gentleman who 
owned him. Now if Dick was intelligent, obedient, useful, only 
not rebellious, with his superiors, I should fancy that amongst 
his equals he was by no means pleasant company, and that 
most of them hated him for his arrogance, his honesty, and his 
scorn of them all. 

But women do not always hate a man for scorning and de- 
spising them. Women do not revolt at the rudeness and arro- 
gance of us their natural superiors. Women, if properly 
trained, come down to heel at the master’s bidding, and lick 
the hand that has been often raised to hit them. I do not say 
the brave little Dick Bedford ever raised an actual hand to 
this poor serving-girl, but his tongue whipped her, his behavior 
trampled on her, and she cried, and came to him whenever he 
lifted a finger. Psha ! Don’t tell me. If you want a quiet, 
contented, orderly home, and things comfortable about you, 
that is the way you must manage your women. 

Well, Bedford happens to be in the next room. It is the 
morning-room at Shrublands. You enter the dining-room from 
it, and they are in the habit of laying out the dessert there, be- 
fore taking it in for dinner. Bedford is laying out his dessert 
as Pinhorn enters from my chamber, and he begins upon her 
with a sarcastic sort of grunt, and a “ Ho ! suppose you’ve 
been making up to B., have you ? ” 

“ Oh, Mr. Bedford, you know very well who it is I cares 
for ! ” she says, with a sigh. 

“ Bother ! ” Mr. B. remarks. 

“ Well, Richard, then ! ” (here she weeps.) 

“ Leave go my ’and ! — leave go my a-hand, I say ! ” (What 
could she have been doing to cause this exclamation .?) 

“Oh, Richard, it’s not your 'and I want — it’s your ah*ah-art 
Richard ! ” 


760 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


“ Mary Pinhorn,” exclaims the other, what’s the use of 
going on with this game? You know we couldn’t be a happy 
together — you know your ideers ain’t no good, Mary. It ain’t 
your fault. I don’t blame you for it, my dear. Some people 
are born clever, some are born tall : I ain’t tall.” 

“ Oh, you’re tall enough for me, Richard ! ” 

Here Richard again found reason to cry out : “ Don't., I 
say ! Suppose Baker was to come in and find you squeezing 
of my hand in this way ? I say, some people are born with 
big brains, Miss Pinhorn, and some with big figures. Look at 
that ass, Bulkeley, Lady B.’s man ! He is as big as a Life- 
Guardsman, and he has no more education, and no more ideas, 
than the beef he feeds on.” 

“ La ! Richard, whatever do you mean ? ” 

“ Pooh ! How should know what I mean ? Lay them 
books straight. Put the volumes together, stupid ! and the 
papers, and get the table ready for nursery tea, and don’t go 
on there mopping your eyes, and making a fool of yourself, 
Mary Pinhorn ! ” 

“ Oh, your heart is a stone — a stone — a stone ! ” cries Mary, 
in a burst of tears. “ And I wish it was hung round my neck, 
and I was at the bottom of the well, and — there’s the hup stairs 
bell ! ” with which signal 1 suppose Mary disappeared, for I 
only heard a sort of grunt from Mr. Bedford ; then the clatter 
of a dish or two, the wheeling of chairs and furniture, and then 
came a brief silence, which lasted until the entry of Dick’s sub- 
ordinate, Buttons, who laid the children’s and Miss Prior’s tea. 

So here was an old story told over again. Here was love 
unrequited, and a little passionate heart wounded and unhappy. 
My poor little Mary ! As I am a sinner, I will give thee a 
crown when I go away, and not a couple of shillings, as my 
won’t has been. Five shillings will not console thee much, but 
they will console thee a little. Thou wilt not imagine that 
I bribe- thee with any privy thought of evil ? Away? Ich habe 
genossen das irdische Gluck — ich habe — gcliebt f 

At this juncture I suppose Mrs. Prior must have entered 
the apartment, for though I could not hear her noiseless step, 
her little cracked voice cam$ pretty clearly to me with a Good 
afternoon, Mr. Bedford ! Oh, dear me ! what a many — many 
years we have been acquainted. To think of the pretty little 
printer’s boy who used to come to Mr. Batchelor, and see you 
grown such a fine man ! ” 

Bedford. — “ How ? I’m only five foot four.” 

Mrs. P . — “ But such a fine figure, Bedford ! You are — now 






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IN WHICH / PL A y THE SPY. 761 

indeed you are ! Well, you are strong and I am weak. You 
are well, and I am weary and faint.” 

Bedford . — “ The tea’s a coming directly, Mrs. Prior.” 

Mrs. JR . — “ Could you give me a glass of water first — and 
perhaps a little sherry in it, please. Oh, thank you. How 
good It is ! How it revives a poor old wretch ! — and your 
cough, Bedford ? How is your cough } I have brought you 
some lozenges for it — some of Sir Henry Halford’s own pre- 
scribing for my dear husband, and ” 

Bedford (abruptly). — “ I must go — never mind the cough 
now, Mrs. P.” 

Mrs. Prior. — “ What’s here ? almonds and raisins, maca- 
roons, preserved apricots, biscuits for dessert — and — la bless 
the man ! how you sta— artled me ! ” 

Bedford. — “ Don’t ! Mrs. Prior j I beg and implore of you, 
keep your ’ands out of the dessert. I can’t stand it. I must 
tell the governor if this game goes on.” 

Mrs. P. — “Ah ! Mr. Bedford, it is for my poor — poor child 
at home : the doctor recommended her apricots. Ay, indeed, 
dear Bedford ; he did, for her poor chest ! ” 

Bedford. — “ And I’m blest if you haven’t been at the sherry- 
bottle again ! Oh, Mrs. P., you drive me wild — you do. I 
can’t see Lovel put upon in this way. You know it’s only last 
week I whopped the boy for stealing the sherry, and ’twas you 
done it.” 

Mrs. Prior (passionately)'. — “ For a sick child, Bedford. 
What won’t a mother do for her sick child ? ” 

Bedford. — “Your children’s always sick. You’re always 
taking things for ’em. I tell you, by the laws, I won’t and 
mustn’t stand it, Mrs. P.” 

Mrs. Prior (with much spirit). — “ Go and tell your master, 
Bedford ! Go and tell tales of me, sir. Go and have me dis- 
missed out of this house. Go and have my daughter dismissed 
out of this house, and her poor mother brought to disgrace.” 

Bedford. — “ Mrs. Prior — Mrs. Prior ! you have\>Q^xi a taking 
the sherry. A glass I don’t mind ; but you’ve been a bringing 
that bottle again.” 

(whimpering). — “It’s for Charlotte, Bedford! my 
poor delicate angel of a Shatty ! she’s ordered it, indeed she 
is ! ” 

Bedford. — “ Confound your Shatty ! I can’t stand it, I 
mustn’t, and won’t, Mrs. P. ! ” 

Here a noise and clatter of other persons arriving inter- 
rupted the conversation between Lovel’s maior-domo and the 


LOVEL THE IVIDOIVER. 


762 

mother of the children’s governess, and I presently heard 
master Pop’s voice saying, “You’re going to tea with us, Mrs. 
Prior ? ” 

Mrs. F. — “Your kind dear grandmammas have asked me, 
dear Master Popham.” 

Pop. — “ But you’d like to go to dinner best, wouldn’t you ? 
I dare say you have doosid bad dinners at your house. Haven’t 
you, Mrs. Prior ? ” 

Cissy . — “ Don’t say doosid. It’s a naughty word, Popham ! *’ 

Fop. — “ I will say doosid. Doo-oo-oosid ! 'fhere ! And 
I’ll say worse words too, if I please, and you hold your tongue. 
What’s there for tea } jam for tea ? strawberries for tea ? muffins 
for tea? That’s it: strawberries and muffins for tea. And 
we’ll go in to dessert besides : that’s prime. I say, Miss 
Prior ? ” 

Miss Prior. — “ What do you say, Popham ? ” 

Fop. — “ Shouldn’t you like to go in to dessert ? — there’s lots 
of good things there, — and have wine. Only when grand- 
mamma tells her story about my grandfather and King George 
the what-d’ye-call-’im : King George the Fourth ” 

Cis . — “Ascended the throne, 1820; died at Windsor, 1830.” 

Pop . — “ Bother W^indsor ! Well, when she tells that story, I 
can tell you that ain’t very good fun.” 

Cis . — “ And it’s rude of you to speak in that way of your 
grandmamma, Pop ! ” 

Fop . — “ And you’ll hold your tongue. Miss ! And I shall 
speak as I like. And I’m a man, and I don’t want any of your 
stuff and nonsense. I say, Mary, give us the marmalade ! ” 

Cis . — “You have had plenty to eat, and boys oughtn’t to 
have so much.” 

Pop . — “ Boys may have what they like. Boys can eat twice 
as much as women. There, I don’t want any more. Anybody 
may have the rest.” 

.Mrs. Prior . — “What nice marmalade! I know some chil- 
dren, my dears, who ” 

Miss. P. (imploringly). — “ Mamma, I beseech you ” 

Mrs. P . — “ I know three dear children who very — very 
seldom have nice marmalade and delicious cake.” 

Pop . — “ I know whom you mean : you mean Augustus, and 
Frederick, and Fanny — your children ? Well, they shall have 
marmalade and cake.” 

Cis . — “ Oh, yes, I will give them all mine.” 

Pop. (who speaks, 1 think, as if his mouth was full). — “ I 
won’t give ’em mine : but they can have another pot, you know. 


IN WHICH I PL A y THE SPY. y 63 

You have always got a basket with you ; you know you have, 
Mrs. Prior. You had it the day you took the cold fowl.” 

Mrs. P . — “ For the poor blind black man ! Oh, how thank- 
ful he was to his dear young benefactors ! He is a man and a 
brother, and to help him was most kind of you, dear Master 
Popham ! ” 

Pop. — “ That black beggar my brother .? He ain’t my 
brother.” 

Mrs. P . — “ No, dears, you have both the most lovely com- 
plexions in the world.” 

Pop. — “ Bother complexions ! I say, Mary, another pot of 
marmalade.” 

Mary. — “ I don’t know, Master Pop ” 

Pop. — “ I will have it, I say. If you don’t I’ll smash every- 
thing, I will.” 

Cis. — “ Oh, you naughty, rude boy ! ” 

Pop. — “ Hold your tongue, stupid ! I will have it, I say.” 

Mrs. P. — “ Do humor him, Mary, please. And I’m sure 
my dear children at home will be better for it.” 

Pop. — “There’s your basket. Now put this cake in, and 
this bit of butter, and this sugar on the top of the butter. 
Hurray ! hurray ! Oh, what jolly fun ! Here’s some cake — 
no, I think I’ll keep that ; and, Mrs. Prior, tell Gus, and Fanny, 
and P'red, I sent it to ’em, and they shall never want for anything 
as long as Frederick Popham Baker Lovel, Esquire, can give it 
them. Did Gus like my gray great-coat that I didn’t want ? ” 

Miss P. — “ You did not give him your new great-coat ? ” 

Pop. — “ It was beastly ugly, and I did give it him ; and I’ll 
give him this if I choose. And don’t you speak to me ; I’m 
going to school, and I ain’t going to have no governesses soon.” 

Mrs. Prior. — “ Ah, dear child ! what a nice coat it is ; and 
how well my poor boy looks in it ! ” 

Miss Prior. — “ Mother, mother ! I implore you- — moth- 


Mr. Lovel enters. — “ So the children at high tea ! How d’ye- 
do, Mrs. Prior ? I think we shall be able to manage that little 
matter for your second boy, Mrs. Prior.” 

Mrs. Prior. — “ Heaven bless you, — bless you, my dear, kind 
benefactor ! Don’t prevent me, Elizabeth ; I f?iust kiss his 
hand. There ! ” 

And here the second' bell rings, and I enter the morning- 
room, and can see Mrs. Prior’s great basket propped cunningly 
under the tablecloth. Her basket ? — her porte-manteau., her 
porte-bouteille., her porte-gdteau, her portepantalon^ her porie-butin 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


764 

in general. Thus I could see that every day Mrs. Prior visited 
Shrublands she gleaned greedily of the harvest. Well, Boaz 
was rich, and this ruthless Ruth was hungry and poor. 

At the welcome summons of the second bell, Mr. and Mrs. 
Bonnington also made their appearance ; the latter in the new 
cap which Mrs. Prior had admired, and which she saluted with 
a nod of smiling recognition : “ Dear madam, it is lovely — I told 
you it was,” whispers Mrs. P., and the wearer of the blue 
ribbons turned her bonny, good-natured face towards the look- 
ing-glass, and I hope saw no reason to doubt Mrs. Prior’s 
sincerity. As for Bonnington, I could perceive that he had 
been taking a little nap before dinner, — a practice by which the 
appetite is improved, I think, and the intellect prepared for the 
bland prandial conversation. 

“ Have the children been quite good ? ” asks papa, of the 
governess. 

“ There are worse children, sir,” says Miss Prior, meekly. 

“ Make haste and have your dinner ; we are coming in to 
dessert ! ” cries Pop. 

“ You would not have us go to dine without your grand- 
mother ? ” papa asks. Dine without Lady Baker, indeed ! I 
should have liked to see him go to dinner without Lady Baker. 

Pending her ladyship’s arrival, papa and Mr. Bonnington 
walk to the open window, and gaze on the lawn and the towers 
of Putney rising over the wall. 

“Ah, my good Mrs. Prior,” cries Mrs. Bonnington, “ those 
grandchildren of mine are sadly spoiled.” 

“Not by^^w, dear madam,” says Mrs. Prior, with a look of 
commiseration. “Your dear children at home are, I am sure, 
perfect models of goodness. Is Master Edward well, ma’am ? 
and Master Robert, and Master Richard, and dear funny little 
Master William.'^ Ah, what blessings those children are to 
you ! If a certain wilful little nephew of theirs took after them ! ” 

“ The little naughty wretch ! ” cried Mrs. Bonnington ; “ do 
you know, Prior, my grandson Frederick — (I don’t know why 
they call him Popham in this house, or why he should be 
ashamed of his father’s name) — do you know that Popham spilt 
the ink over my dear husband’s bands, which he keeps in his 
great dictionary, and fought with my Richard, who is three years 
older than Popham, and actually beat his own uncle ! ” 

“ Gracious goodness ! ” I cried ; “ you don’t mean to say, 
ma’am, that Pop has been laying violent hands upon his ven- 
erable relative > ” I feel ever so gentle a pull at my coat. Was 
it Miss Prior who warned me not to indulge in the sarcastic 
method with good Mrs. Bonnington ? 


TN WHICH I PL A V THE SPY. 


765 

“I don’t know why you call my poor child a venerable 
relative?” Mrs. B. remarks. “I know that Popham was very 
rude to him : and then Robert came to his brother, and that 
graceless little Popham took a stick, and my husband came out, 
and do you know Popham Lovel actually kicked Mr. Benning- 
ton on the shins, and butted him like a little naughty ram ; and 
if you think such conduct is a subject for ridicule — I don't., Mr. 
Batchelor.” 

“ My dear — dear lady ! ” I cried, seizing her hand ; for she 
was going to cry, and in woman’s eye the unanswerable tear 
always raises a deuce of a commotion in my mind. “ I would 
not for the world say a word that should willingly vex you ; and 
as for Popham, I give you my honor, I think nothing would do 
that child so much good as a good whipping.” 

“ He is spoiled, madam ; we know by whom^" says Mrs. 
Prior. “ Dear Lady Baker ! how that red does become your 
“ ladyship.” In fact, Lady B. sailed in at this juncture, arrayed 
in ribbons of scarlet ; with many brooches, bangles, and other 
gimcracks ornamenting her plenteous person. And now her 
ladyship having arrived, Bedford announced that dinner was 
served, and Lovel gave his mother-in-law an arm, whilst I 
offered mine to Mrs. Bonnington to lead her to the adjoining 
dining-room. And the pacable kind soul speedily made peace 
with me. And we ate and drank of Lovel’s best. And Lady 
Baker told us her celebrated anecdote of George the Fourth’s 
compliment to her late dear husband, Sir Popham, when his 
Majesty visited Ireland. Mrs. Prior and her basket were gone 
when we repaired to the drawing-room : having been hunting all 
day, the hungry mother had returned with her prey to her 
wide-mouthed birdikins. Elizabeth looked very pale and hand- 
some, reading at her lamp. And whist and the little tray finished 
the second day at Shrublands. 

I paced the moonlit walk alone when the family had gone 
to rest ; and smoked my cigar under the tranquil stars. I had 
been some thirty hours in the house, and what a queer little 
drama was unfolding itself before me ! What struggles and 
passions were going on here — what certamina and motus anim- 
orum / Here was Lovel, this willing horse ; and what a crowd 
of relations, what a heap of luggage had the honest fellow to 
carry ! How that little Mrs. Prior was working, and scheming, 
and tacking, and flattering, and fawning, and plundering, to be 
sure ! And that serene Elizabeth, with what consummate skill, 
art, and prudence, had she to act, to keep her place with two 
such rivals reigning over her. And Elizabeth not only kept her 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


766 

place, but she actually was liked by those two women ! Why, 
Elizabeth Prior, my wonder and respect for thee increase with 
every hour during which I contemplate thy character ! How is 
it that you live with those lionesses, and are not torn to pieces ? 
What sops of flattery do you cast to them to appease them ? 
Perhaps I do not think my Elizabeth brings up her two children 
very well, and, indeed, have seldom become acquainted with 
young people more odious. But is the fault hers, or is it For- 
tune’s spite ? How, with these two grandmothers spoiling the 
children alternately, can the governess do better than she 
does ? How has she managed to lull their natural jealousy ? 
I will work out that intricate problem, that I will, ere many 
days are over. And there are other mysteries which I per- 
ceive. There is poor Mary breaking her heart for the butler. 
That butler, why does he connive at the rogueries of Mrs. 
Prior ? Ha ! herein lies a myster}" too ; and I vow I will 
penetrate it ere long. So saying, I fling away the butt-end 
of the fragrant companion of my solitude, and enter into my 
room by the open French window just as Bedford walks in at 
the door. I had heard the voice of that worthy domestic 
warbling a grave melody from his pantry window as I paced 
the lawn. When the family goes to rest, Bedford passes a 
couple of hours in study in his pantry, perusing the newspapers 
and the new works, and forming his opinion on books and 
politics. Indeed I have reason to believe that the letters in 
the Putney Herald and Mortlake Moiiitor, signed “A Voice 
from the Basement,” were Mr. Bedford’s composition. 

Come to see all safe for the night, sir, and the windows 
closed before you turn in,” Mr. Dick remarks. “ Best not 
leave ’em open, even if you are asleep inside — catch cold — 
many bad people about. Remember Bromley murder ! — Enter 
at French windows — you cry out — cut your throat — and there’s 
a fine paragraph for papers next morning ! ” 

“ What a good voice you have, Bedford,” I say ; “ I heard 
you warbling just now — a famous bass, on my word ! ” 

“ Always fond of music — sing when I’m cleaning my plate — 
learned in Old Beak Street. She used to teach me,” and he 
points towards the upper floors. 

“ What a little chap you were then ! — when you came for 
my proofs for the Museum, I remark. 

“ I ain’t a very big one now, sir ; but it ain’t the big ones 
that do the best work,” remarks the butler. 

“ I remember Miss Prior saying that you were as old as she 


was. 


IN WHICH I FLA V THE SPY. 


767 

“ Hm ! and I scarce came up to her — eh — elbow.” (Bedford 
had constantly to do battle with the aspirates. He conquered 
them, but yDu could see there was a struggle.) 

And it was Miss Prior taught you to sing > ” I say, looking 
him full in the face. 

Pie dropped his eyes — he could not bear my scrutiny. I 
knew the whole story now. 

“ When Mrs. Lovel died at Naples, Miss Prior brought 
home the children, and you acted as courier to the whole 
party ? ” 

“Yes, sir,” says Bedford. “We had the carriage, and of 
course poor Mrs. L. was sent home by sea, and I brought home 
the young ones, and — and the rest of the family. I could say, 
Avanti ! avanti ! to the Italian postilions, and ask for des 
chevaux when we crossed the Halps — the Alps, — I beg your 
pardon, sir.” 

“ And you used to see the party to their rooms at the inns, 
and call them up in the morning, and you had a blunderbuss 
in the rumble to shoot the robbers ? ” 

“ Yes,” says Bedford. 

“ And it was a pleasant time ? ” 

“Yes,” says Bedford, groaning, and hanging down his miS' 
erable head. “ Oh, yes, it was a pleasant time.” 

He turned away ; he stamped his foot ; he gave a sort of 
imprecation; he pretended to look at some books, and dust 
them with a napkin which he carried. I saw the matter at once. 
“ Poor Dick ! ” says I. 

“ It’s the old — old story,” says Dick. “ It’s you and the 
Hirish girl over again, sir. I’m only a servant, I know ; but 

I’m a . Confound it ! ” And here he stuck his fists into 

his eyes. 

“ And this is the reason you allow old Mrs. Prior to steal 
the sherry and the sugar } ” T ask. 

“ How do you know that r — you remember how she prigged 
in Beak Street ? ” asks Bedford, fiercely. 

“ I overheard you and her just before dinner,” I said. 

“ You had better go and tell Lovel — have me turned out of 
the house. That’s the best thing that can be done,” cries Bed- 
ford again, fiercely, stamping his feet. 

“ It is always my custom to do as much mischief as I pos- 
sibly can, Dick Bedford,” I say, with fine irony. 

He seizes my hand. “ No, you’re a trump — everybody 
knows that ; beg pardon, sir ; but you see I’m so — so — dash ! 
— miserable, that I hardly know whether I’m walking on my 
head or my heels.” 


768 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


‘ You haven’t succeeded in touching her heart, then, my 
poor Dick ? ” I said. 

Dick shook his head. “ She has no heart,” he said. “ If 
she ever had any, that fellar in India took it away with him. 
She don’t care for anybody alive. She likes me as well as any 
one. I think she appreciates me, you see, sir ; she can’t ’elp it 
— I’m blest if she can. She knows I am a better man than 
most of the chaps that come down here, — I am, if I wasn’t a 
servant. If I were only an apothecary — like that grinning 
jackass who comes here from Barnes in his gig, and wants to 
marry her — she’d have me. She keeps him on, and encourages 
him — she can do that cleverly enough. And the old dragon 
fancies she is fond of him. Psha ! Why am I making a fool 
of myself ? — I am only a servant. Mary’s good enough for 
me ; j7z^’//have me fast enough. I beg your pardon, sir ; I am 
making a fool of myself ; I ain’t the first, sir. Good night, sir; 
hope you’ll sleep well.” And Dick departs to his pantry and 
his private cares, and I think, “ Here is another victim who is 
writhing under the merciless arrows of the universal torturer.” 

“He is a very singular person,” Miss Prior remarked to me, 
as, next day, I happened to be walking on Putney Heath by 
her side, while her young charges trotted on and quarrelled in 
the distance. “ I wonder where the world will stop next, dear 
Mr. Batchelor, and how far the march of intellect will proceed ! 
Any one so free, and easy, and cool, as this Mr. Bedford I 
never saw. When we were abroad with poor Mrs. Lovel, he' 
picked up French and Italian in quite a surprising way. He 
takes books down from the library now : the most abstruse 
works — works that /couldn’t pretend to read. I’m sure. Mr. 
Bonnington says he has taught himself history, and Horace in 
Latin, and algebra, and I don’t know what besides. He talked 
to the servants and tradespeople at Naples much better than 1 
could, I assure you.” And Elizabeth tosses up her head 
heavenwards, as if she would ask of yonder skies how such a 
man could possibly be as good as herself. 

She stepped along the Heath — slim, stately, healthy, tall — ■ 
her firm, neat foot treading swiftly over the grass. She wore 
her blue spectacles, but I think she could have looked at the 
sun without the glasses and without wincing. That sun was 
playing with her tawny, wavy ringlets, and scattering gold-dust 
over them. 

“ It is wonderful,” said I, admiring her, “ how these people 
give themselves airs, and try to imitate their betters ! ” 

“ Most extraordinary ! ” says Bessy. She had not one par- 
ticle of humor in all her composition. I think Dick Bedford 


m WHICH I PL A Y THE SPY. 


769 

was right ; and she had no heart. Well, she had famous lungs, 
health, appetite, and with these one may get through life not 
uncomfortably. 

“ You and Saint Cecilia got on pretty well, Bessy ? ” I ask. 

“ Saint who ? ” 

The late Mrs. L,” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Lovel ; — ^yes. What an odd person you are ! I 
did not understand whom you meant,” says Elizabeth the 
downright. 

“Not a good temper, I should think? She and Fred 
fought ? ” 

“ He never fought.” 

“ I think a little bird has told me that she was not averse 
to the admiration of our sex ? ” 

“ I don’t speak ill of my friends, Mr, Batchelor,” replies 
Elizabeth the prudent 

You must have difficult work with the two old ladies at 
Shrublands ? ” 

Bessy shrugs her shoulders. “ A little management is neces- 
sary in all families,” she says. “The ladies are naturally a 
little jealous one of the other ; but they are both of them not 
unkind to me in the main ; and I have to bear no more than 
other women in my situation. It was not all pleasure at St. 
Boniface, Mr, Batchelor, with my uncle and aunt I suppose 
all governesses have their difficulties : and I must get over 
mine as best I can, and be thankful for the liberal salary which 
your kindness procured for me, and which enables me to help 
my poor mother and my brothers and sisters.” 

“ I suppose you give all your money to her ? ” 

“ Nearly all. They must have it ; poor mamma has so 
many mouths to feed.” 

“ And notre petit coeur, Bessy ? ” I ask, looking in her fresh 
face. “ Have we replaced the Indian officer ? ” 

Another shrug of the shoulders, “ I suppose we all get 
over those follies, Mr. Batchelor. I remember somebody else 
was in a sad way too,” — and she looks askance at the victim of 
Giorvina, “ My folly is dead and buried long ago. I have to 
work so hard for mamma, and my brothers and sisters, that I 
have no time for such nonsense.” 

Here a gentleman in a natty gig, with a high-trotting horse, 
came spanking towards us over the common, and with my pro- 
found knowledge of human nature, I saw at once that the ser- 
vant hv the driver’s side was a little doctor’s boy, and the 
gentleman himself was a neat and trim general practitioner. 

49 


770 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


He stared at me grimly, as he made a bow to Miss Bessy. 
I saw jealousy and suspicion in his aspect. 

“Thank you, dear Mr. Drencher,” says Bessy, “for your 
kindness to mamma and our children. You are going to call 
at Shrublands? Lady Baker was indisposed this morning. 
She says when she can’t have Dr. Piper, there’s nobody like 
you.” And this artful one smiles blandly on Mr. Drencher. 

“ I have got the workhouse, and a case at Roehampton, and 
I shall be at Shrublands about two, Miss Prior,” says that 
young Doctor, whom Bedford had called a grinning jackass. 
He laid an eager emphasis on the two. Go to ! I know what 
two and two means as well as most people, Mr. Drencher ! 
Glances of rage he shot at me from out his gig. The serpents 
of that miserable .^Esculapius unwound themselves from his 
rod, and were gnawing at his swollen heart ! 

“ He has a good practice, Mr. Drencher ? ” I ask, sly rogue 
as I am. 

“ He is very good to mamma and our children. His prac- 
tice with them does not profit- him much,” says Bessy. 

“ And I suppose our walk will be over before two o’clock ? ” 
remarks that slyboots who is walking with Miss Prior. 

“ I hope so. Why, it is our dinner-time ; and this walk on 
the Heath does make one so hungry ! ” cries the governess. 

“ Bessy Prior,” I said, “ it is my belief that you no more 
want spectacles than a cat in the twilight.” To which she re- 
plied, that I was such a strange, odd man, she really could not 
understand me. 

We were back at Shrublands at two. Of course we must 
not keep the children’s dinner waiting : and of course Mr. 
Drencher drove up at five minutes past two, with his gig-horse 
all in a lather. I, who knew the secrets of the house, was 
amused to see the furious glances which Bedford darted from 
the sideboard, or as he served the Doctor with cutlets. 
Drencher, for his part, scowled at me. I, for my part, was 
easy, witty, pleasant, and I trust profoundly wicked and mali- 
cious. I bragged about my aristocratic friends to Lady Baker. 
I trumped her old-world stories about George the Fourth at 
Dublin with the latest dandified intelligence I had learned at 
the club. That the young Doctor should be dazzled and dis- 
gusted was, I own, my wish ; and I enjoyed his rage as I saw 
him choking with jealousy over his victuals. 

But why was Lady Baker sulky with me ? How came it, 
my fashionable stories had no effect upon that polite matron ? 
Yesterday at dinner she had been gracious enough : and turn- 


TN WHICH I PL A Y THE SPY. 


771 

ing her back upon those poor simple Bonningtons, who knew 
nothing of the beau mo7ide at all, had condescended to address 
herself specially to me several times with an “ I need not tell 
you^ Mr. Batchelor, that the Duchess of Dorsetshire’s maiden 
name was De Bobus;’’ or, “You know very well that the eti- 
quette at the Lord Lieutenant’s balls, at Dublin Castle, is for 
the wives of baronets to ” — &c., &c. 

Now whence, I say, did it arise that Lady Baker, who had 
been kind and familiar with me on Sunday, should on Monday 
turn me a shoulder as cold as that lamb which I offered to carve 
for the family, and which remained from yesterday’s quarter ? 
I had thought of staying but two days at Shrublands. I gener- 
ally am bored at country-houses. I was going away on the 
Monday morning, but Lovel, when he and I and the children 
and Miss Prior breakfasted together before he went to business, 
pressed me to stay so heartily and sincerely that I agreed, 
gladly enough, to remain. I could finish a scene or two of 
my tragedy at my leisure ; besides, there were one or two little 
comedies going on in the house which inspired me with no little 
curiosity. 

Lady Baker growled at me, then, during lunch-time. She 
addressed herself in whispers and hints to Mr. Drencher. She 
had in her own man Bulkeley, and bullied him. She desired to 
know whether she was to have the barouche or not : and when 
informed that it was at her ladyship’s service, said it was a great 
deal too cold for the open carriage, and that she would have 
the brougham. When she was told that Mr. and Mrs. Bonning- 
ton had impounded the brougham, she said she had no idea of 
people taking other people’s carriages : and when Mr. Bedford 
remarked that her ladyship had her choice that morning, and 
had chosen the barouche, she said, “ I didn’t speak to you, sir ; 
and I will thank you not to address me until you are spoken 
to ! ” She made the place so hot that I began to wish I had 
quitted it. 

“ And pray. Miss Prior, where is Captain Baker to sleep,” 
she asked, “ now that the ground-floor room is engaged ? ” 

Miss Prior meekly said, “ Captain Baker would have the 
pink room.” 

“ The room on my landing-place, without double doors } 
Impossible ! Clarence is always smoking. Clarence will fill 
the whole house with his smoke. He shall not sleep in the 
pink room. I expected the ground-floor room for him, which — 
a — this gentleman persists in not vacating.” And the dear 
creature looked me full in the face. 


772 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


“ This gentleman srnokes, too, and is so comfortable where he 
is, that he proposes to remain there,” I say, with a bland smile. 

“ Haspic of plovers’ eggs, sir,” says Bedford, handing a 
dish over my back. And he actually gave me a little dig, and 
growled, “ Go it — give it her ! ” 

“ There is a capital inn on the Heath,” I continue, peeling 
one of my opal favorites. “ If Captain Baker must smoke, he 
may have a room there.” 

“ Sir ! my son does not live at inns,” cries Lady Baker. 

“ Oh, grandma ! ” don’t he though ? And wasn’t there a 
row at the ‘ Star and Garter ; ’ and didn’t Pa pay uncle Clar- 
ence’s bill there, though ? ” 

“ Silence, Popham ! Little boys should be seen and not 
heard,” says Cissy. “ Shouldn’t little boys be seen and not 
heard. Miss Prior ? ” 

“ They shouldn’t insult their grandmothers. O my Cecilia 
— my Cecilia ! ” cries Lady Baker, lifting her hand. 

“ You sha’n’t hit me ! I say you sha’n’t hit me ! ” roars Pop, 
starting back, and beginning to square at his enraged ances- 
tress. The scene was growing painful. And there was that 
rascal of a Bedford choking with suppressed laughter at the 
sideboard. Bulkeley, her ladyship’s man, stood calm as fate ; 
but young Buttons burst out in a guffaw ; on which, I assure 
you. Lady Baker looked as savage as Lady Macbeth. 

“ Am I to be insulted by my daughter’s servants ? ” criep 
Lady Baker. “ I will leave the house this instant.” 

“ At what hour will your ladyship have the barouche ? ” says 
Bedford, with perfect gravity. 

If Mr. Drencher had whipped out a lancet and bled Lady 

B on the spot, he would have done her good. I shall draw 

the curtain over this sad — this humiliating scene. Drop, little 
curtain ! on this absurd little act. 


CHAPTER IV. 

A BLACK SHEEP. 

The being for whom my friend Dick Bedford seemed to 
have a special contempt and adversion, was Mr. Bulkeley, the 
tall footman in attendance upon Lovel’s dear mother-in-law. 


A BLACK SHEEP. 


773 


One of the causes of Bedford’s wrath, the worthy fellow 
explained to me. In the servants’ hall, Bulkeley was in the 
habit of speaking in disrespectful and satirical terms of his 
mistress, enlarging upon her many foibles, and describing her 
pecuniary difficulties to the many habitues of that second social 
circle at Shrublands. The hold which Mr. Bulkeley had over 
his lady lay in a long unsettled account of wages, which her 
ladyship was quite disinclined to discharge. And, in spite of 
this insolvency, the footman must have found his profit in the 
place, for he continued to hold it from year to year, and to 
fatten on his earnings, such as they were. My lady’s dignity 
did not allow her to travel without this huge personage in her 
train ; and a great comfort it must have been to her, to reflect 
that in all the country-houses which she visited (and she would 
go wherever she could force an invitation), her attendant freely 
explained himself regarding her peculiarities, and made his 
brother servants aware of his mistress’s embarrassed condition. 
And yet the woman, w’hom I suppose no soul alive respected 
(unless, haply, she herself had a hankering delusion that she 
was a respectable woman), thought that her position in life 
forbade her to move abroad without a maid, and this hulking 
incumbrance in plush ; and never was seen anywhere, in water- 
ing-place, country-house, hotel, unless she was so attended. 

Between Bedford and Bulkeley, then, there was feud and 
mutual hatred. Bedford chafed the big man by constant sneers 
and sarcasms, which penetrated the other’s dull hide, and 
caused him frequently to assert that he would punch Dick’s 
ugly head off. The housekeeper had frequently to interpose, 
and fling her matronly arms between these men of war ; and 
perhaps Bedford was forced to be still at times, for Bulkeley 
was nine inches taller than himself, and was perpetually brag- 
ging of his skill and feats as a bruiser. This sultan may also 
have wished to fling his pocket-handkerchief to Miss Mary 
Pinhorn, who, though she loved Bedford’s wit and cleverness, 
might also be not insensible to the magnificent chest, calves, 
whiskers, of Mr. Bulkeley. On this delicate subject, however, 
I can’t speak. The men hated each other. You have, no 
doubt, remarked in your experience of life, that when men do 
hate each other, about a woman, or some other cause, the real 
reason is never assigned. You say, “The conduct of such and 
such a man to his grandmother — his behavior in selling that 
horse to Benson — his manner of brushing his hair down the 
middle ” — or what you wall, “ makes him so offensive to me that 
I can’t endure him.” His verses, therefore, are mediocre ; his 


774 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


speeches in Parliament are utter failures ; his practice at the 
bar is dwindling every year ; his powers (always small) are 
utterly leaving him, and he is repeating his confounded jokes 
until they quite nauseate. Why, only about myself, and within 
these three days, I read a nice little article — written in sorrow, 
you know, not in anger — by our eminent cofifrere Wiggins, 
deploring the decay of &c., &c. And Wiggins’s little article 
which was not found suitable for a certain Magazine ? — Allans 
done ! The drunkard says the pickled salmon gave him the 
headache ; the man who hates us gives a reason, but not the 
reason. Bedford was angry with Bulkeley for abusing his 
mistress at the servants’ table ? Yes. But for what else 
besides ? I don’t care — nor possibly does your worship, the 
exalted reader, for these low vulgar kitchen quarrels. 

Out of that ground-floor room, then, I would not move in 
spite of the utmost efforts of my Lady Baker’s broad shoulder 
to push me out; and with many grins that evening, Bedford 
complimented me on my gallantry in routing the enemy at 
luncheon. I think he may possibly have told his master, for 
Lovel looked very much alarmed and uneasy when we greeted 
each other on his return from the City, but became more com- 
posed when Lady Baker appeared at the second dinner-bell, 
without a trace on her fine countenance of that storm which had 
caused all her waves to heave with such commotion at noon. 
How finely some people, by the way, can hang up quarrels — or 
pop them into a drawer — as they do their work, when dinner 
is announced, and take them out again at a convenient season ! 
Baker was mild, gentle, a thought sad and sentimental — 
tenderly interested about her dear son and daughter, in Ireland, 
whom she must go and see — quite easy in hand, in a word, 
and to the immense relief of all of us. She kissed Lovel on 
retiring, and prayed blessings on her Frederick. She pointed 
to the picture : nothing could be more melancholy or more 
gracious. 

“ She go ! ” says Mr. Bedford to me at night — “ not she. 
She knows when she’s well off ; was obliged to turn out of 
Bakerstown before she came here : that brute Bulkeley told me 
so. She’s always quarrelling with her son and his wife. 
Angels don’t grow everywhere as they do at Putney, Mr. B. ! 
You gave it her well to-day at lunch, you did though ! ” During 
my stay at Shrublands, Mr. Bedford paid me a regular evening 
visit in my room, set the carte du pays before me, and in his 
curt way acquainted me with the characters of the inmates of 
the house, and the incidents occurring therein. 


A BLACK SHEEP. 


775 

Captain Clarence Baker did not come to Slirublands on the 
day when his anxious mother wished to clear out my nest (and 
expel the amiable bird in it) for her son’s benefit. I believe an 
important fight, which was to come off in the Essex Marshes, 
and which was postponed in consequence of the interposition 
of the county magistrates, was the occasion, or at any rate the 
pretext, of the Captain’s delay. “ He likes seeing fights better 
than going to ’em, the Captain does,” my major-domo remarked. 

His regiment was ordered to India, and he sold out : climate 
don’t agree with his precious health. The Captain ain’t been 
here ever so long, not since poor Mrs. L.’s time, before Miss P. 
came here : Captain Clarence and his sister had a tremendous 
quarrel together. He was up to all sorts of pranks, the Cap- 
tain was. Not a good lot, by any means, I should say, Mr. 
Batchelor.” And here Bedford begins to laugh. “ Did you 
ever read, sir, a farce called ‘ Raising the Wind ? ’ There’s 
plenty of Jeremy Diddlers now. Captain Jeremy Diddlers and 
Lady Jeremy Diddlers too. Have you such a thing as half a 
crown about you ? If you have, don’t invest it in some folks’ 
pockets — that’s all. Beg your pardon, sir, if I am bothering you 
with talking. 

As long as I was at Shrublands, and ready to partake of 
breakfast with my kind host and his children and their gover- 
ness, Lady Baker had her own breakfast taken to her room. 
But when there were no visitors in the house, she would come 
groaning out of her bedroom to be present at the morning 
meal ; and not uncommonly would give the little company 
anecdotes of the departed saint, under whose invocation, as it 
were, we were assembled, and whose simpering effigy looked 
down upon us, over her harp, and from the wall. The eyes of 
the portrait followed you about, as portraits’ eyes so painted 
will \ and those glances, as it seemed to me, still domineered 
over Lovel, and made him quail as they had done in life. 
Yonder, in the corner, was Cecilia’s harp with its leathern cover. 
I likened the skin to that drum with the dying Zisca ordered 
should be made out of his hide, to be beaten before the hosts 
of his people and inspire terror. Vous concevez^ I did not say 
to Lovel at breakfast, as I sat before the ghostly musical in- 
strument, “ My dear fellow, that skin of Cordovan leather be- 
longing to your defunct Cecilia’s harp is like the hide which,” 
&c. ; but I confess, at first, I used to have a sort of crawly 
sensation, as of a sickly genteel ghost flitting about the place, 
in an exceedingly peevish humor, tryingto scold and command, 
and finding her defunct voice couldn’t be heard — trying to re* 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


776 

illumine her extinguished leers and faded smiles and ogles, and 
finding no one admired or took note. In the gray of the 
gloaming, in the twilight corner where stands the shrouded 
companion of song — what is that white figure flickering round 
the silent harp ? Once, as we were assembled in the room at 
afternoon tea, a bird, entering at the open window, perched on 
the instrument. Popham dashed at it. Lovel was deep in 
conversation upon the wine-duties with a Member of Parliament 
he had brought down to dinner. Lady Baker, who was, if I 
may use the expression, “ jawing,” as usual, and telling one of 
her tremendous stories about the Lord Lieutenant to Mr. 
Bonnington, took no note of the incident. Elizabeth did not 
seem to remark it : what was a bird on a harp to her, but a 
sparrow perched on a bit of leather-casing ! All the ghosts in 
Putney churchyard might rattle all their bones, and would not 
frighten that stout spirit ! 

I was amused at a precaution which Bedford took, and some- 
what alarmed at the distrust towards Lady Baker which he ex- 
hibited, when, one day on my return from town — whither I had 
made an excursion of four or five hours — I found my bedroom 
door locked, and Dick arrived with the key. “ He’s wrote to 
say he’s coming this evening, and if he had come when you was 
away. Lady B. was capable of turning your things out, and put- 
ting his in, and taking her oath she believed you was going to 
leave. The long-bows Lady B. do pull are perfectly awful, Mr. 
B. ! So it was long-bow to long-bow, Mr. Batchelor ; and I said 
you had took the key in your pocket, not wishing to have your 
papers disturbed. She tried the lawn window, but I had bolted 
"that, and the Captain will have the pink room, after all, and 
must smoke up the chimney. I should have liked to see him, 
or you, or any one do it in poor Mrs. L.’s time — I just should ! ” 

During my visit to London, I had chanced to meet my friend 
Captain Fitzb — die, who belongs to a dozen clubs, and knows 
something of every man in London. “Know anything of 
Clarence Baker ? ” “ Of course I do,” says Fitz ; “and if you 

want any rensdgfteme?it^ my dear fellow, I have the honor to in- 
form you that a blacker little sheep does not trot the London 
pave. Wherever that ingenious officer’s name is spoken — at 
Tattersall’s, at his clubs, in his late regiments, in men’s society^ 
in ladies’ society, in that expanding and most agreeable circle 
which you may call no society at all — a chorus of maledictions 
rises up at the mention of Baker. Know anything of Clarence 
Baker ! My dear fellow, enough to make your hair turn white, 
unless (as I sometimes fondly imagine) nature has already per- 


A BLACK SHEEP. 


777 


formed that process, when of course I can’t pretend to act upon 
mere hair-dye.” (The whiskers of the individual who addressed 
me, innocent, stared me in the face as he spoke, and were dyed 
of the most unblushing purple.) “ Clarence Baker, sir, is a 
young man who would have been invaluable in Sparta as a 
warning against drunkenness and an exemplar of it. He has 
helped the regimental surgeon to some most interesting experi- 
ments in deliriu7ti iremens. He is known, and not in the least 
trusted, in every billiard-room in Brighton, Canterbury, York, 
Sheffield — on every pavement which has rung with the clink of 
dragoon boot-heels. By a wise system of revoking at whist he 
has lost games which have caused not only his partners, but his 
opponents and the whole club, to admire him and to distrust 
him : long before and since he was of age, he has written his 
eminent name to bills which have been dishonored, and has 
nobly pleaded his minority as a reason for declining to pay. 
From the garrison towns where he has been quartered, he has 
carried away not only the hearts of the milliners, but their gloves, 
haberdashery, and perfumery. He has had controversies with 
Cornet Green, regarding horse transactions \ disputed turf ac- 
counts with Lieutenant Brown ; and betting and backgammon 
differences with Captain Black. From all I have heard he is 
the worthy son of his admirable mother. And I bet you even 
on the four events, if you stay three days in a country-house 
with him — which appears to be your present happy idea — that 
he will quarrel with you, insult you, and apologize ; that he will 
intoxicate himself more than once ; that he will offer to play 
cards with you, and not pay on losing (if he wins, I perhaps 
need not state what his conduct will be) ; and that he will try 
to borrow money from you, and most likely from your servant, 
before he goes away.” So saying, the sententious Fitz strutted 
up the steps of one of his many club-haunts in Pall Mall, and 
left me forewarned, and I trust forearmed, agair»st Captain 
Clarence and' all his works. 

The adversary, when at length I came in sight of him, did 
not seem very formidable. I beheld a weakly little man with 
Chinese eyes, and pretty little feet and hands, whose pallid 
countenance told of Finishes and Casinos. His little chest and 
fingers were decorated with many jewels. A perfume of tobacco 
hung round him. His little mustache was twisted with an 
elaborate gummy curl. I perceived that the little hand which 
twirled the mustache shook woefully : and from the little chest 
there came a cough surprisingly loud and dismal. 

He was lying on a sofa as I entered, and the children of the 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


778 

house were playing round him. If you are our uncle, why 
didn’t you come to see us oftener?’’ asks Popham. 

“ How should I know that you were such uncommonly nice 
children ? ” asks the Captain. 

“ We’re not nice to you/’ says Popham. ” Why do you 
cough so ? Mamma used to cough. And why does your hand 
shake so ? ” 

“ My hand shakes because I am ill : and I cough because 
I’m ill. Your mother died of it, and I dare say I shall too.’' 

“ I hope you’ll be good, and repent before you die, uncle, 
and I will lend you some nice books,” says Cecilia. 

“ Oh, bother books ! ” cries Pop. 

“ And I hope youUl be good, Popham,” and “ You hold you?* 
tongue, miss,” and “I shall,” and “ I sha’n’t,” and “You’re 
another,” and “ I’ll tell Miss Prior,” — “ Go and tell, tell-tale,” 
Boo” — “Boo” — “Boo” — “Boo” — and I don’t know 
what more exclamations came tumultuously and rapidly from 
these dear children, as their uncle lay before them, a hand- 
kerchief to his mouth, his little feet high raised on the sofa 
cushions. 

Captain Baker turned a little eye towards me, as I entered 
the room, but did not change his easy and elegant posture. 
When I came near to the sofa where he reposed, he was good 
enough to call out : 

“ Glass of sherry ! ” 

“ It’s Mr. Batchelor ; it isn’t Bedford, uncle,” says Cissy. 

“ Mr. Batchelor ain’t got any sherry in his pocket : — ■ 
have you, Mr. Batchelor ? You ain’t like old Mrs. Prior, always 
pocketing things, are you ? ” cries Pop, and falls a laughing at 
the ludicrous idea of my being mistaken for Bedford. 

“ Beg your pardon. How should I know, you know ? ’ 
drawls the invalid on the sofa. “ Everybody’s the same now, 
you see.” 

“ Sir ! ” says I, and “ sir ” was all I could say. The fact is, 
I could have replied with something remarkably neat and 
cutting, which would have transfixed the languid little jacka- 
napes who dared to mistake me for a footman ; but, you see, I 
only thought of my repartee some eight hours afterwards when 
I was lying in bed, and I am sorry to own that a great number 
of my best bo7i mots have been made in that way. So, as I had 
not the pungent remark ready when wanted, I can’t say I said 
it to Captain Baker, but I dare say I turned very red, and said, 
“ Sir ! ” and — and in fact that was all. 

“ You were goin’ to say somethin’ ? ” asked the Captain 
affably. 


A BLACK SHEEP, 


779 

“ You know my friend Mr. Fitzboodle, I believe ? ” said I ; 
the fact is, I really did not know what to say. 

“ Some mistake — think not.” 

“ He is a member of the ‘ Flag Club,’ ” I remarked, look- 
ing my young fellow hard in the face. 

“ I ain’t. There’s a set of cads in that club that will say 
anything.” 

“ You may not know him, sir, but he seemed to know you 
very well. Are we to have any tea, children } ” I say, flinging 
myself down on an easy chair, taking up a magazine, and 
adopting an easy attitude, though I dare say my face was as 
red as a turkey-cock’s, and I was boiling over with rage. 

As we had a very good breakfast and a profuse luncheon at 
Shrublands, of course we could not support nature till dinner- 
time without a five-o’clock tea ; and this was the meal for which 
I pretended to ask. Bedford, with his silver kettle, and his 
buttony satellite, presently brought in this refection, and of 
course the children bawled out to him — 

“ Bedford — Bedford ! uncle mistook Mr. Batchelor for you.” 

“ I could not be mistaken for a more honest man. Pop,” 
said I. And the bearer of the tea-urn gave me a look of grat- 
itude and kindness which, I own, went far to restore my ruffled 
equanimity. 

“ Since you are the butler, will you get me a glass of sherry 
and a biscuit ? ” says the Captain. And Bedford, retiring, 
returned presently with the wine. 

The young gentleman’s hand shook so, that in order to 
drink his wine, he had to surprise it, as it were, and seize it 
with his mouth, when a shake brought the glass near his lips. 
He drained the wine, and held out his hand for another glass. 
The hand was steadier now. 

“ You the man who was here before ? ” asks the Captain. 

“ Six years ago, when you were here, sir,” says the butler. 

“ What ! I ain’t changed, I suppose ? ” 

“ Yes, you are, sir.” 

“ Then, how the dooce do you remember me ? ” 

“ You forgot to pay me some money you borrowed of me, 
one pound five, sir,” says Bedford, whose’ eyes slyly turned in 
my direction. 

And here, according to her wont at this meal, the dark- 
robed Miss Prior entered the room. She was coming forward 
with her ordinarily erect attitude and firm step, but paused in 
her walk an instant, and when she came to us, I thought, looked 
remarkably pale. She made a slight curtsey, and it must be 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


780 

confessed that Captain Baker rose up from his sofa for a 
moment when she appeared. She then sat down, with her 
back towards him, turning towards herself the table and its tea 
apparatus. 

At this board my I,ady Baker found us assembled when she 
returned from her afternoon drive. She flew to her darling 
reprobate of a son. She took his hand, she smoothed back his 
hair from his damp forehead. “ My darling child,” cries this 
fond mother, “ what a pulse you have got ! ” 

“I suppose, because I’ve been drinj^ing,” says the prodigal. 

“ Why didn’t you come out driving with me ? The afternoon 
was lovely ! ” 

“ To pay visits at Richmond ? Not as I knows on, ma’am,” 
says the invalid. “ Conversation with elderly ladies about 
poodles, Bible societies, that kind of thing ? It must be a doosid 
lovely afternoon that would make me like that sort of game.” 
And here comes a fit of coughing, over which mamma ejaculates 
her sympathy. 

“Kick — kick — killin’ myself !” gasps out the ^Captain ; 
“know I am. No man can lead my life, and stand it. Dyin’ 
by inches ! Dyin’ by whole yards, by Jo — ho — hove, I am ! ” 
Indeed, he was as bad in health as in morals, this graceless 
Captain. 

“ That man of Lovel’s seems a d insolent beggar,” he 

presently and ingenuously remarks. 

“ Oh, uncle, you mustn’t say those words ! ” cries niece 
Cissy. 

“ He’s a man, and may say what he likes, and so will I, 
when Tm a man. Yes, and I’ll say it now, too, if I like,” cries 
Master Popham. 

“ Not to give me pain, Popham ? Will you t ” asks the 
governess. 

On which the boy says — “ Well, who wants to hurt you. Miss 
Prior ! ” 

And our colloquy ends by the arrival of the man of the 
house from the City. 

What I have admired in some dear women is their capacity 
for quarrelling and for reconciliation. As I saw Lady Baker 
hanging round her son’s neck, and fondling his scanty ringlets, 
I remembered the awful stories with which in former days she 
used to entertain us regarding this reprobate. Her heart was 
pincushioned with his filial crimes. Under her chestnut front 
her ladyship’s real head of hair was gray, in consequence of his 
iniquities. His precociovts appetite had devoured the greater 


A BLACK SHEEP. 


781' 

part of her jointure. He had treated her many dangerous ill- 
nesses with indifference : had been the worst son, the worst 
brother, the most ill-conducted schoolboy, the most immoral 
young man — the terror of households, the Lovelace of garrison 
towns, the perverter of young officers ; in fact. Lady Baker did 
not know how she supported existence at all under the agony 
occasioned by his crimes, and it was only from the possession 
of a more than ordinarily strong sense of religion that she was 
enabled to bear her burden. 

The Captain himself explained these alternating maternal 
caresses and quarrels in his easy way. 

“ Saw how the old lady kissed and fondled me ? ” says he 
to his brother-in-law. “ Quite refreshin’, ain’t it ? Hang me, I 
thought she was goin’ to send me a bit of sweetbread off her 
own plate. Came up to my room last night, wanted to tuck me 
up in bed, and abused my brother to me for an hour. You see, 
when I’m in favor, she always abuses Baker; when in favor 
she abuses me to him. And my sister-in-law, didn’t she give it 
my sister-in-law ! Oh ! I’ll trouble you ! And poor Cecilia — 
why, hang me, Mr. Batchelor, she used to go on — this bottle’s 
corked, I’m hanged if it isn’t — to go on about Cecilia, and call 
her * * * Hullo ! ” 

Here he was interrupted by our host, who said sternly — 

“ Will you please to forget those quarrels, or not mention 
them here ? Will you have more wine, Batchelor } ” 

And Lovel rises, and haughtily stalks out of the room. To do 
Lovel justice, he had a great contempt and dislike for his young 
brother-in-law, which, with his best magnanimity, he could not 
at all times conceal. 

So our host stalks towards the drawing-room, leaving Cap- 
tain Clarence sipping wine. 

“ Don’t go, too,” says the Captain. “ He’s a confounded 
rum fellow, my brother-in-law is. He’s a confounded ill-condi- 
tioned fellow, too. They always are, you know, these trades- 
men fellows, these half-bred ’uns. I used to tell my sister so ; 
but she would have him, because he had such lots of money, 
you know. And she threw over a fellar she was very fond of ; 
and I told her she’d regret it. I told Lady B. she’d regret it. 
It was all Lady B.’s doing She made Cissy throw the fellar 
over. He was a bad match, certainly, Tom Mountain was ; 
and not a clever fellow, you know, or that sort of thing but, at 
any rate, he was a gentleman, and better than a conLunded 
sugar-baking beggar out Ratcliff Highway.” 

“ You seem to find that dare ..-y good.” I remark, soeaf 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


782 

ing, I may say, Socratically, to my young friend, who had been 
swallowing bumper after bumper. 

“ Claret good ! Yes, doosid good ! ” 

“ Well, you see our confounded sugar-baker gives you his 
best.” 

“ And why shouldn't he, hang him ? Why, the fellow chokes 
with money. What does it matter to him how much he spends ? 
You’re a poor man, I dare say. You don’t look as if you were 
overfiush of money. Well, \i you stood a good dinner, it would 
be all right — I mean it would show — you understand me, you 
know. But a sugar-baker with ten thousand a year, what does it 
matter to him, bottle of claret more — less ? ” 

“ Let us go in to the ladies,” I say. 

“ Go in to mother ! /don’t want to go in to my mother,” 
cries out the artless youth. “ And I don’t want to go in to 
the sugar-baker, hang him ! and I don’t want to go in to the 
children ; and I’d rather have a glass of brandy-and-water with 
you, old boy. Here you ! What’s your name ? Bedford ! I owe 
you five-and-twenty shillings, do I, old Bedford ? Give us a 
glass of Schnaps, and I’ll pay you! Look here, Batchelor. I 
hate that sugar-baker. Two years ago, I drew a bill on him, and 
he wouldn’t pay it — perhaps he would have paid it, but my 
sister wouldn’t let him. And, I say, shall we go and have 
a cigar in your room ? My mother’s been abusing you to me 
like fun this morning. She abuses everybody. She used to 
abuse Cissy. Cissy used to abuse her — used to fight like two 
cats * » 

And if I narrate this conversation, dear Spartan youth ! if I 
show thee this Helot maundering in his cups, it is that from 
his odious example thou may’st learn to be moderate in the use 
of thine own. Has the enemy who has entered thy mouth ever 
stolen away thy brains ? Has wine ever caused thee to blab 
secrets ; to utter egotisms and follies ? Beware of it. Has it 
ever been thy friend at the end of the hard day’s work, the 
cheery companion of thy companions, the promoter of harmony, 
kindness, harmless social pleasure ? Be thankful for it. Three 
years since, when the comet was blazing in the autumnal sky, 
I stood on the chateau-steps of a great claret proprietor. 
“ Boirai-je de ton vin, O comete ? ” I said, addressing the 
luminary with the flaming tail. “ Shall those generous bunches 
which you ripen yield their juices for me morituro ? ” It was a 
solemn thought. Ah ! my dear brethren ! who knows the Order 
of the Fates ? When shall we pass the Gloomy Gates ? Which 
^ us goes, which of us waits to drink those famous Fifty-eights 1 


A BLACK SHEEP. 


783 

A sermon, upon my word ! And pray why not a little homily 
on an autumn eve over a purple cluster ? * * * * If that 
rickety boy had only drunk claret, I warrant you his tongue 
would not have blabbed, his hand would not have shaken, his 
wretched little brain and body would not have reeled with 
fever. 

“ ’Gad,” said he next day to me, “ cut again last night. Have 
an idea that I abused Lovel. When I have a little wine on 
board, always speak my mind, don’t you know ? Last time I 
was here in my poor sister’s time, said somethin’ to her, don’t 
quite know what it was, somethin’ confoundedly true and un- 
pleasant I dare say. I think it was about a fellow she used 
to go on with before she married the sugar-baker. And I got 
orders to quit, by Jove, sir — neck and crop, sir, and no mistake ! 
And we gave it one another over the stairs. Oh, my ! we did 
pitch in ! — And that was the last time I ever saw Cecilia — give 
you my word. A doosid unforgiving woman my poor sister was, 
and between you and me, Batchelor, as great a flirt as ever 
threw a fellar over. You should have heard her and my Lady 
B. go on, that’s all ! — Well, mamma, are you going out for a 
drive in the coachy-poachy ?— Not as I knows on, thank you, 
as I before had the honor to observe. Mr. Batchelor and me 
are going to play a little game at billiards.” We did, and I 
won ; and, from that day to this, have never been paid my little 
winnings. 

On the day after the doughty captain’s arrival. Miss Prior, 
in whose face I had remarked a great expression of gloom and 
care, neither made her appearance at breakfast nor at the 
children’s dinner. ‘‘ Miss Prior was a little unwell,” Lady 
Baker said, with an air of most perfect satisfaction. “ Mr. 
Drencher will come to see her this afternoon, and prescribe for 
her, I dare say,” adds her ladyship, nodding and winking a roguish 
eye at me. I was at a loss to understand what was the point of 
humor which amused Lady B., until she herself explained it. 

“ My good sir,” she said, “ I think Miss Prior is not at all 
averse to being ill.” And the nods recommenced. 

As how ” I ask. 

“ To being ill, or at least to calling in the medical man.” 

“ Attachment between governess and Sawbones I make bold 
for to presume } ” says the Captain. 

“ Precisely, Clarence — a very fitting match. I saw the 
affair, even before Miss Prior owned it — that is to say, she has 
not denied it. She says she can’t afford to marry, that she has 
children enough at home in her brothers and sisters. She is a 


LOVEL THIE WIDOWER. 


784 

well-principled young woman, and does credit, Mr. Batchelor, 
to your recommendation, and the education she has received 
from her uncle, the Master of St. Boniface.” 

“ Cissy to school ; Pop to Eton ; and Miss What-d’you-call 
to grind the pestle in Sawbones’ back-shop : I see ! ” says Cap- 
tain Clarence. “ He seems a low, vulgar blackguard, that Saw- 
bones.” 

“ Of course, my love, what can you expect from that sort of 
person ? ” asks mamma, whose own father was a small attorney 
in a small Irish town. 

“ I wish I had his confounded good health,” cries Clar- 
ence, coughing. 

“ My poor darling ! ” says mamma. 

I said nothing. And so Elizabeth was engaged to that 
great, broad-shouldered, red-whiskered young surgeon with the 
huge appetite and the dubious /;’s ! Well, why not? Wdiat 
was it to me ? Why shouldn’t she marry him ? Was he not an 
honest man, and a fitting match for her? Yes. Very good. 
Only if I do love a bird or flower to glad me with its dark blue 
eye, it is the first to fade away. If I have a partiality for a 

young gazelle it is the first to psha ! What have I to do 

with this namby-pamby ? Can the heart that has truly loved 

ever forget, and doesn’t it as truly love on to the stuff ! I 

am past the age of such follies. I might have made a woman 
happy : I think I should. But the fugacious years have lapsed, 
my Posthumus ! My waist is now a good bit wider than my 
chest, and it is decreed that I shall be alone ! 

My tone, then, when next I saw Elizabeth, was sorrowful 
— not angry. Drencher, the young doctor, came punctually 
enough, you may be sure, to look after his patient. Little Pin- 
horn, the children’s maid, led the young practitioner smiling 
towards the schoolroom regions. His creaking highlows sprang 
swiftly up the stairs. I happened to be in the hall, and sur- 
veyed him with a grim pleasure. “ Now he is in the school- 
room,” I thought. “ Now he is taking her hand — it is very 
white — and feeling her pulse. And so on, and so on. Surely, 
surely Pinhorn remains in the room ? ” I am sitting on a hall- 
table as I muse plaintively on these things, and gaze up the 
stairs by which the Hakeem (great carroty-whiskered cad !) has 
passed into the sacred precincts of the harem. As I gaze up 
the stair, another door opens into the hall ; a scowling face 
peeps through that door, and looks up the stair, too. ’Tis Bed- 
ford, who ha§ slid put pf his pantry, and watches the doctor. 
And thou, too, my poor Bedford ! Oh ! the whole world throbs 


^ BLACK SHEEP. 


785 


"with vain heart-pangs, and tosses and heaves with longing, un- 
fulfilled desires ! All night, and all over the world, bitter tears 
are dropping as regular as the dew, and cruel memories are 
haunting the pillow. Close my hot eyes, kind Sleep ! Do not 
visit it, dear delusive images out of the Past ! Often your 
figure shimmers through my dreams, Glorvina. Not as you are 
now, the stout mother of many children — you always had an 
alarming likeness to your own mother, Glorvina — but as you 
were — slim, black-haired, blue-eyed — when your carnation lips 
warbled the “Vale of Avoca ” or the “Angel’s Whisper.” 
“What!” I say then, looking up the stair, “am I absolutely 
growing jealous of yon apothecary? — O fool ! ” And at this 
juncture, out peers Bedford’s face from the pantry, and I see he 
is jealous too. I tie my shoe as I sit on the table ; I don’t 
affect to notice Bedford in the least (who, in fact, pops his own 
head back again as soon as he sees mine). I take my wide- 
awake from the peg, set it on one side my head, and strut 
whistling out of the hall-door. I stretch over Putney Heath, 
and my spirit resumes its tranquillity. 

I sometimes keep a little journal of my proceedings, and on 
referring to its pages, the scene rises before me pretty clearly 
to which the brief notes allude. On this day I find noted : 
'‘'‘Friday., ^uly 14. — B. came down to-day. Seems to require a 
great deal of attendance from Dr. — Row between dowagers after 
dinner.'^ “ B.,” I need not remark, is Bessy. “ Dr.,” of course, 
you know. “ Row between dowagers ” means a battle royal 
between Mrs. Bonnington and Lady Baker, such as not unfre- 
quently raged under the kindly Lovel’s roof. 

Lady Baker’s gigantic menial Bulkeley condescended to wait 
at the family dinner at Shrublands, when perforce he had to put 
himself under Mr. Bedford’s Orders. Bedford would gladly 
have dispensed with the London footman, over whose calves, 
he said, he and his boy were always tumbling ; but Lady 
Baker’s dignity would not allow her to part from her own man ; 
and her good-natured son-in-law allowed her, and indeed almost 
all other persons, to have their own way. I have reason to 
fear Mr. Bulkeley’s morals were loose. Mrs. Bonnington had a 
special horror of him ; his behavior in the village public-houses, 
where his powder and plush were forever visible — his freedom 
of conduct and conversation before the good lady’s nurse and 
parlor-maids — provoked her anger and suspicion. More than 
once, she whispered to me her loathing of this flour-besprinkled 
monster; and, as much as such a gentle creature could, she 
showed her dislike to him by her behavior. The flunkey’s 

50 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


786 

solemn equanimity was not to be disturbed by any such feeble 
indications of displeasure. From his powdered height, he 
looked down upon Mrs. Bonnington, and her esteem or her dis- 
like was beneath him. 

Now on this Friday night the 14th, Captain Clarence had 
gone to pass the day in town, and our Bessy made her appear- 
ance again, the doctor’s prescriptions having, I suppose, agreed 
with her. Mr. Bulkeley, who was handing coffee to the ladies, 
chose to offer none to Miss Prior, and I was amused when I 
saw Bedford’s heel scrunch down on the flunkey’s right foot, 
as he pointed towards the governess. The oaths which Bulke- 
ley had to devour in silence must have been frightful. To do 
the gallant fellow justice, I think he would have died rather 
than speak before company in a drawing-room. He limped up 
and offered the refreshment to the young lady, who bowed and 
declined it. 

“ Frederick,” Mrs. Bonnington begins, when the coffee-cere- 
mony is over, “ now the servants are gone, I must scold you 
about the waste at your table, my dear. What was the need 
of opening that great bottle of champagne } Lady Baker only 
takes two glasses. Mr. Batchelor doesn’t touch it.” (No thank 
you, my dear Mrs. Bonnington : too old a stager.) “ Why not 
have a little bottle instead of that great, large, immense one ? 
Bedford is a teetotaler. I suppose it is that Lofidon foot 77 ian 
who likes itl'‘ 

“ My dear mother, I haven’t really ascertained his tastes,” 
says Lovel. 

“ Then why not tell Bedford to open a pint, dear ? ” pur- 
sues mamma. 

“ Oh, Bedford — Bedford, we must not mention hiTtt, Mrs. 
Bonnington ! ” cries Lady Baker. “ Bedford is faultless. Bed- 
ford has the keys of everything. Bedford is not to be controlled 
in anything. Bedford is to be at liberty to be rude to my ser- 
vant.” 

“ Bedford was admirably kind in his attendance on your 
daughter, Lady Baker,” says Lovel, his brow darkening : “ and 
as for your man, I should think he was big enough to protect 
himself from any rudeness of poor Dick ! ” The good fellow 
had been angry for one moment, at the next he was all for peace 
and conciliation. 

Lady Baker puts on her superfine air. With that air she 
had often awe-stricken good, simple Mrs. Bonnington ; and she 
loved to use it whenever City folks or humble people were pres- 
ent. You see she thought herself your superior and mine, as 


A BLACK SHEEP, 


787 

de par la monde there are many artless Lady Bakers who do. 
“ My dear Frederick ! ” says Lady B., then, putting on her best 
May Fair manner, “excuse me for saying, but you don’t know 
the — the class of servant to which Bulkeley belongs. I had 
him as a great favor from Lord Toddleby’s. That — that class 
of servant is not generally accustomed to go out single.” 

“ Unless they are two behind a carriage-perch they pine 
away, I suppose,” remarks Mr. Lovel, “as one love-bird does 
without his mate.” 

“No doubt — no doubt,” says Lady B., who does not in the 
least understand him ; “ I only say you are not accustomed 
here — in this kind of establishment, you understand — to that 
class of ” 

But here Mrs. Bonnington could contain her wrath no more. 
“ Lady Baker ! ” cries that injured mother, is my son’s estab- 
lishment not good enough for any powdered wretch in England } 
Is the house of a British merchant ” 

“ My dear creature — my dear creature ! ” interposes her 
ladyship, “ it is the house of a British merchant, and a most 
comfortable house too.” 

“ Yes, as yon find itfi remarks mamma. 

“ Yes, as I find it, when I come to take care of that departed 
angeVs children,, Mrs. Bonnington ! ” — (Lady B. here indicates 
the Cecilian effigy) — “ of that dear seraph’s orphans, Mrs. 
Bonnington ! You cannot. You have other duties — other chil- 
dren — a husband, whom you have left at home in delicate 
health, and who ” 

“ Lady Baker ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Bonnington, “ no one shall 
say I don’t take care of my dear husbancTl ” 

“ My dear Lady Baker ! — my dear — dear mother ! ” cries 
Lovel, eplore,, and whimpers aside to me, “ They spar in this 
way every night, when we’re alone. It’s too bad, ain’t it. 
Batch .? ” 

“ I say you do take care of Mr. Bonnington,” Baker blandly 
resumes (she has hit Mrs. Bonnington on the raw place, and 
smilingly proceeds to thong again) : “ I say you do take care of 
your husband, my dear creature, and that is why you can’t at- 
tend to Frederick ! And as he is of a very easy temper, — except 
sometimes with his poor Cecilia’s mother, — he allows all his 
tradesmen to cheat him ; all his servants to cheat him ; Bedford 
to be rude to everybody ; and if to me, why not to my servant 
Bulkeley, with whom Lord Toddleby’s groom of the chambers 
gave me the very highest character .? ” 

Mrs. Bonnington in a great flurry broke in by saying she 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


788 

was surprised to hear that noblemen had grooms in theii cham 
bers ; and she thought they were much better in the stables ; 
and when they dined with Captain Huff, you know, Frederick, 
his man always brought such a dreadful smell of the stable in 

with him, that Here she paused. Baker’s eye was on her \ 

and that Dowager was grinning a cruel triumph. 

“ He ! — he ! You mistake, my good Mrs. Bonnington ! ” says 
her ladyship. “ Your poor mother mistakes, my dear Frederick. 
You have lived in a quiet and most respectable sphere, but not, 
you understand, not ” 

“ Not what, pray. Lady Baker ? We have lived in this neigh- 
borhood twenty years r in my late husband’s time, when we 
saw a great deal of company., and this dear Frederick was a boy 
at Westminster School. And we have paid for everything we 
have had for twenty years ; and we have not owed a penny to 
any tradesman. And we may not have had powdered fooUnen, 
six feet high, impertinent beasts, who were rude to all the maids 
in the place. Don’t — I will speak, Frederick ! But servants 
who loved us, and who were paid their wages., and who — o — ho 
"—ho — ho ! ” 

Wipe your eyes, dear friends ! out with all your pocket- 
handkerchiefs. I protest I cannot bear to see a woman in distress. 
Of course Fred Lovel runs to console his dear old mother, and 
vows Lady Baker meant no harm. 

“ Meant harm ! My dear Frederick, what harm can I mean ? 
I only said your poor mother did not seem to know what a 
groom of the chambers was ! How should she ? ” 

“Come — come,” says Frederick, “enough of this! Miss 
Prior, will you be so^Lind as to give us a little music ? ” 

Miss Prior was playing Beethoven at the piano, very solemnly 
and finely, when our Black Sheep returned to this quiet fold, 
and, I am sorry to say, in a very riotous condition. The bril- 
liancy of his eye, the purple flush on his nose, the unsteady 
gait, and uncertain tone of voice, told tales of Captain Clarence, 
who stumbled over more than one chair before he found a seat 
near me. 

“ Quite right, old boy,” says he, winking at me. “ Cut again 
— dooshid good fellosh. Better than being along with you 
shtoo-pid-old-fogish.” And he began to w^arble wild “ Fol-de- 
rol-lolls ” in an insane accompaniment to the music. 

“ By heavens, this is too bad ! ” growls Lovel. “ Lady 
Baker, let your big man carry your son to bed. Thank you. Miss 
Prior 1 ” 

At a final yell, which the uclyck^^ young scapegrace gave, 


A BLACK SHEEP. 


7^9 

Elizabeth stopped, and rose from the piano, looking very pale. 
She made her curtsey, and was departing, when the wretched 
young captain sprung up, looked at her, and sank back on the 
sofa with another wild laugh. Bessy fled away scared, and 
white as a sheet. 

“Take the brute to bed ! ” roars the master of the house, 
in great wrath. And scapegrace was conducted to his apartment, 
whither he went laughing wildly, and calling out, “ Come on, 
old sh-sh-shugar-baker ! ” 

The morning after this fine exhibition. Captain Clarence 
Baker’s mamma announced to us that her poor dear suffering 
boy was too ill to come to breakfast, and I believe he prescribed 
for himself devilled drumstick and soda-water, of which he par- 
took in his bedroom. Lovel, seldom angry, was violently wroth 
with his brother-in-law ; and, almost always polite, was at break- 
fast scarcely civil to Lady Baker. I am bound to say that female 
abused her position. She appeals to Cecilia’s picture a great 
deal too much during the course of breakfast. She hinted, she 
sighed, she waggled her head at me, and spoke about “that 
angel ” in the most tragic manner. Angel is all very well : but 
your angel brought in a toiitpropos ; your departed blessing 
called out of her grave ever so many times a day ; when grand- 
mamma wants to carry a point of her own j when the children 
are naughty, or noisy ; when papa betrays a bickering inclina- 
tion to dine at his club, or to bring home a bachelor friend or 
two to Shrublands ; — I say your angel always dragged in by the 
wings into the conversation loses her effect. No man’s heart 
put on wider crape than Level’s at Cecilia’s loss. Considering 
the circumstances, his grief was most creditable to him : but 
at breakfast, at lunch, about Bulkeley the footman, about the 
barouche or the phaeton, or any trumpery domestic perplexity, 
to have a Deus inter sit was too much. And I observed, with 
some inward satisfaction, that when Baker uttered her pompous 
funeral phrases, rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, and appealed 
to that quarter, the children ate their jam and quarrelled and 
kicked their little shins under the table, Lovel read his paper 
and looked at his watch to see if it was omnibus time ; and 
Bessy made the tea, quite undisturbed by the old lady’s tragical 
prattle. 

When Baker described her son’s fearful cough and dread- 
fully feverish state, I said, “ Surely, Lady Baker, Mr. Drencher 
had better be sent for ; ” and I suppose I uttered the disgust- 
ing dissyllable Drencher with a fine sarcastic accent ; for once, 
*ust once Bessy’s gray eyes rose through the sof’ctacles and 


790 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


met mine with a glance of unutterable sadness, then calmly set- 
tled down on to the slop-basin again, or the urn, in which her 
pale features, of course, were odiously distorted. 

‘‘ You will not bring anybody home to dinner, Frederick, in 
my poor boy’s state ? ” asks Lady B. 

“ He may stay in his bedroom I suppose,” replies Lovel. 

“ He is Cecilia’s brother, Frederick ! ” cries the lady. 

“ Conf ” Lovel was beginning. What was he about to 

say ? 

“ If you are going to confound your angel in heaven, I have 
nothing to say, sir ! ” cries the mother of Clarence. 

“ Parbleu, madaine ! ” cried Lovel, in French ; “ if he were 
not my wife’s brother, do you think I would let him stay 
here ? ” 

“Parly Fran9ais? Oui, oui, oui ! ” cries Pop. “I know 
what Pa means ! ” 

“ And so do I know. And I shall lend uncle Clarence 
some books which Mr. Bonnington gave me, and ” 

“ Hold your tongue all ! ” shouts Lovel, with a stamp of his 
foot. 

“ You will, perhaps, have the great kindness to allow me 
the use of your carriage — or, at least, to wait here until my 
poor suffering boy can be moved, Mr. Lovel ? ” says Lady B., 
with the airs of a martyr. 

Lovel rang the bell. “ The carriage for Lady Baker — at her 
ladyship’s hour, Bedford : and the cart for her luggage. Her ^ 
ladyship and Captain Baker are going away.” 

“ I have lost one child, Mr. Lovel, whom some people seem 
to forget. I am not going to murder another ! I will not leave 
this house, sir, unless you drive me from it by force^ until the 
medical man has seen my boy ! ” And here she and sorrow 
sat down again. She was always giving warning. She was 
always fitting the halter and traversing the cart, was Lady B., 
but she forever declined to drop the handkerchief and have 
the business over. I saw by a little shrug in Bessy’s shoulders, 
what the governess’s views were of the matter : and, in a word, 
Lady B. no more went away on this day, than she had done on 
forty previous days when she announced her intention of going. 
She would accept benefits, you see, but then she insulted her 
benefactors, and so squared accounts. 

That great healthy, florid, scarlet-whiskered medical wretch 
came at about twelve, saw Mr. Baker and prescribed for him ; and 
of course he must have a few words with Miss Prior, and inquire 
state of her health. Tu5t 'ts on the previous occasion, I 


A BLACK SHEEP. 


791 

happened to be in the hall when Drencher went up stairs ; Bed- 
ford happened to be looking out of his pantry door : I burst 
into a yell of laughter when I saw Dick’s livid face — the sight 
somehow suited my savage soul. 

No sooner was Medicus gone than Bessy, grave and pale, 
in bonnet and spectacles, came sliding down stairs. I do not 
mean down the banister, which was Pop’s - favorite method of 
descent ; but slim, tall, noiseless, in a nunlike calm, she swept 
down the steps. Of course, I followed her. And there was 
Master Bedford’s nose peeping through the pantry door at us, 
as we went out with the children. Pray, what business of his 
was it to be always watching anybody who walked with Miss 
Prior ? 

“ So, Bessy,” I said, “ what report does Mr. — hem ! — Mr. 
Drencher — give of the interesting invalid ? ” 

“ Oh, the most horrid ! He says that Captain Baker has 
several times had a dreadful disease brought on by drinking, 
and that he is mad when he has delusions, sees demons, when 
he is in this state — wants to be watched.” 

“ Drencher tells you everything? ” 

She says meekly : “ He attends us when we are ill.” 

I remark, with fine irony : “ He attends the whole family : 
he is always coming to Shrublands ! ” 

“He comes very often,” Miss Prior says gravely. 

“And do you mean to say, Bessy,” I cry, madly cutting off 
two or three heads of yellow broom with my stick — “ do you 
mean to say a fellow like that, who drops his Ji% about the 
room, is a w'elcome visitor ? ” 

“ I should be very ungrateful if he were not welcome, Mr. 
Batchelor,” says Miss Prior. “ And call me by my surname, 
please — and he has taken care of all my family — and ” 

“ And, of course, of course, of course. Miss Prior ! ” say I, 
brutally ; “ and this is the way the world wags ; and this is the 
way we are ill, and are cured ; and we are grateful to the 
doctor that cures us ! ” 

She nods her grave head. “ You used to be kinder to me 
once, Mr. Batchelor, in old days -r- in your — in my time of 
trouble! Yes, my dear, that is a beautiful bit of broom ! Oh, 
what a fine butterfly ! ” (Cecilia scours the plain after the 
butterfly.) “ You used to be kinder to me once — when we 
were both unhappy.” 

“I was unhappy,” I say, “but I survived. I was ill, but I 
am now pretty well, thank you. I was jilted by a false, heart- 
less woman. Do you suppose there are no other heartless 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


792 

women in the world ? ” And I am confident, if Bessy’s breast 
had not been steel, the daggers which darted out from my eyes 
would have bored frightful stabs in it. 

But she shook her head, and looked at me so sadly that my 
eye-daggers tumbled down to the ground at once ; for you see, 
though I am a jealous Turk, I am a very easily appeased 
jealous Turk; and'if I had been Bluebeard, and my wife, just 
as I was going to decapitate her, had lifted up her head from 
the block and cried a little, I should have dropped my scimitar, 
and said, “ Come, come, Fatima, never mind for the present 
about that key and closet business, and I’ll chop your head off 
some other morning.” I say Bessy disarmed me. Pooh ! I 
say, women will make a fool of me to the end. Ah ! ye gra- 
cious Fates ! Cut my thread of life ere it grow too long. 
Suppose I were to live till seventy, and some little wretch of a 
woman were to set her cap at me ? She would catch me — I 
know she would. All the males of our family have been 
spoony and soft, to a degree perfectly ludicrous and despicable 

to contemplate Well, Bessy Prior, putting a hand out, 

looked at me, and said — 

“You are the oldest and best friend I have ever had, Mr. 
Batchelor — the only friend.” 

“ Am I, Elizabeth ? ” I gasp, with a beating heart. 

“ Cissy is running back with a butterfly.” (Our hands un- 
lock.) “Don’t you see the difficulties of my position.? Don’t 
you know that ladies are often jealous of governesses ; and 
that unless — unless they imagined I was — I was favorable to 
Mr. Drencher, who is very good and kind — the ladies of Shrub- 
lands might not like my remaining alone in the house with — 
with — you understand .? ” A moment the eyes look over the 
spectacles : at the next, the meek bonnet bows down towards 
the ground. 

I wonder did she hear the bump — bumping of my heart ! 
O heart ! — O wounded heart ! did I ever think thou would’st 
bump — bump again .? “ Egl — Egl — izabeth,” I say, choking 
with emotion, “do, do, do you — te — tell me — you don’t — don’t 
— don’t — lo — love that apothecary .? ” 

She shrugs her shoulder — her charming shoulder. 

“ And if,” I hotly continue, “ if a gentleman — if a man of 
mature age certainly, but who has a kind heart and four hun- 
dred a year of his own — were to say to you, ‘ Elizabeth ! will 
you bid the flowers of a blighted life to bloom again .? — Eliza- 
beth ! will you soothe a wounded heart ? ’ ” 

“ Oh, Mr. Batchelor ! ” she sighed, and then added quickly, 
“ Please, don’t take my hand. Here’s Pop.” 



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A BLACK SHEEP. 


79J 

And that dear child (bless him !) came up at the moment, 
saying, “ Oh, Miss Prior, look here I I’ve got such a jolly big 
toadstool ! ” And next came Cissy, with a confounded butterfly. 

0 Richard the Third ! Haven’t you been maligned because 
you smothered two little nuisances in a Tower ? What is to 
prove to me that you did not serve the little brutes right, and 
that you weren’t a most humane man ? Darling Cissy coming 
up, in her dear, charming way, says, “ You sha’n’t take Mr. 
Batchelor’s hand, you shall take viy hand ! ” And she tosses 
up her little head, and walks with the instructress of her youth. 

“ Ces enfans ne comprennent guhre le Fran^ais,” says Miss 
Prior, speaking very rapidly. 

“ Apres lonche ? ” I whisper. The fact is, I was so agita- 
ted I hardly knew what the French for lunch was. And then 
our conversation dropped : and the beating of my own heart 
was all the sound I heard. 

Lunch came. I couldn’t eat a bit : I should have choked, 
Bessy ate plenty, and drank a glass of beer. It was her dinner, 
to be sure. Young Blacksheep did not appear. We did not 
miss him. When Lady Baker began to tell her story of 
George IV. at Slane Castle, I went into my own room. I took 
a book. Books ? Psha ! I w^ent into the garden. I took out 

a cigar. But no, I would not smoke it. Perhaps she many 

people don’t like smoking. 

I went into the garden. “ Come into the garden, Maud.” 

1 sat by a large lilac-bush. I waited. Perhaps she would come ? 

The morning-room windows were wide open on the lawn. Will 
she never come ? Ah ! what is that tall form advancing ? glid- 
ing — gliding into the chamber like a beauteous ghost ? “ Who 

most does like an angel show, you may be sure ’tis she.” She 
comes up to the glass. She lays her spectacles down on the 
mantel-piece. She puts a slim white hand over her auburn hair 
and looks into the mirror. Elizabeth, Elizabeth ! I come ! 

As I came up, I saw a horrid little grinning, debauched face 
surge over the back of a great arm-chair and look towards 
Elizabeth. It was Captain Blacksheep, of course. He laid his 
elbows over the chair. He looked keenly and with a diabolical 
smile at the unconscious girl ; and just as I reached the window, 
he cried out, Bessy Belleiiden^ by yove 

Elizabeth turned round, gave a little cry, and but 

what happened I shall tell in the ensuing chapter 


794 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


CHAPTER V. 

IN WHICH I AM STUNG BY A SERPENT. 

If when I heard Baker call out Bessy Bellenden, and adjure 
Jove, he had run forward and seized Elizabeth by the waist, or 
offered her other personal indignity, I too should have run for- 
ward on my side and engaged him. Though I am a stout 
elderly man, short in stature and in wind, I know I am a match 
for that rickety little captain on his high-heeled boots. A match 
for him ? I believe Miss Bessy would have been a match for 
both of us. Her white arm was as hard and polished as ivory. 
Had she held it straight pointed against the rush of the dragoon, 
he would have fallen backwards before his intended prey : I 
have no doubt he would. It was the hen, in this case, was 
stronger than the libertine fox, and au besom would have pecked 
the little marauding vermin’s eyes out. Had, I say, Partlet 
been weak, and Reynard strong, 1 would have come forward ; I 
certainly would. Had he been a wolf now, instead of a fox, I 
am certain I should have run in upon him, grappled with him, 
torn his heart and tongue out of his black throat, and trampled 
the lawless brute to death. 

Well, I didn’t do any such thing. I was just gomg to run 
in, — and I didn’t. I was just going to rush to Bessy’s side to 
clasp her (I have no doubt) to my heart : to beard the whiskered 
champion who was before her, and perhaps say, “ Cheer thee — 
cheer thee, my persecuted maiden, my beauteous love — my 
Rebecca ! Come on. Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert, thou dastard 
Templar! It is I, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe.” (By the way, 
though the fellow was not a Templar^ he was a LhicoM s-Itm 
mafi, having passed twice through the Insolvent Court there 
with infinite discredit.) But I made no heroic speeches. There 
was no need for Rebecca to jump out of window and risk her 
lovely neck. How could she, in fact, the French window being 
flush with the ground floor? And I give you my honor, just as 
I was crying my war-cry, couching my lance, and rushing a la 
recousse upon Sir Baker, a sudden thought made me drop my 
(figurative) point : a sudden i 'ea made me rein in my galloping 
(metaphorical) steed and spare Baker for that time. 

Suppose I had gone in ? But for that sudden precaution, 


m WHICh I AM STUNG BY A SEKBENT. 


795 


there might have been a Mrs. Batchelor. I might have been a 
bullied father of ten children. (Elizabeth has a fine high temper 
of her own.) What is four hundred and twenty a year, with a 
wife and perhaps half a dozen children ? Should I have been a 
whit the happier ? Would Elizabeth ? Ah ! no. And yet I 
feel a certain sort of shame, even now, when I think that I didn’t 
go in. Not that I was in a fright, as some people choose to 
hint. I swear I was not. But the reason why I did not charge 
was this — 

Nay, I did charge part of the way, and then, I own, stopped. 
It was an error in judgment. It wasn’t a want of courage. 
Lord George Sackville was a brave man, and as cool as a 
cucumber under fire. Well, he didn’t charge at the battle of 
Minden, and Prince Ferdinand made the deuce and all of a dis- 
turbance, as we know. Byng was a brave man, — and I ask, 
wasn’t it a confounded shame executing him ? So with respect 
to myself. Here is my statement. I make it openly. I don’t 
care. I am accused of seeing a woman insulted, and not going 
to her rescue. I am not guilty, I say. That is, there were 
reasons which caused me not to attack. Even putting aside 
the superior strength of Elizabeth herself to the enemy, — I vow 
there were cogent and honorable reasons why I did not charge 
home. 

You see I happened to be behind a blue lilac-bush (and was 
turning a rhyme — heaven help us ! — in which death was only to 
part me and Elizabeth) when I saw Baker’s face surge over the 
chair-back. I rush forward as he cries “by Jove.” Had Miss 
Prior cried out on her part, the strength of twenty Heenans, I 
know, would have nerved this arm ; but all she did was to turn 
pale, and say, “ O mercy ! Captain Baker ! Do pity me ! ” 

“ What ! you remember me, Bessy Bellenden, do you } ” 
asks the Captain, advancing. 

“ Oh, not that name ! please, not that name ! ” cries Bessy. 

“ I thought I knew you yesterday,” says Baker. “ Only, 
gad, you see, I had so much claret on board, I did not much 
know what was what. And oh ! Bessy, I have got such a split- 
ter of a headache.” 

“ Oh ! please — please, my name is Miss Prior. Pray ! pray, 
sir, don’t ” 

“You’ve got handsomer — doosid deal handsomer. Know 
you now well, your spectacles off. You come in here — teach 
my nephew and niece, humbug my sister, make love to the 
sh Oh ! you uncommon sly little toad ! ” 

“ Captain Baker ! I beg — I implore you,” says Bessy, or 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


J96 

something of the sort : for the white hands assumed an attitude 
of supplication. 

“ Pooh ! don’t gammon says the rickety Captain (or 

words to that effect), and seizes those two firm white hands in 
his moist, trembling palms. 

Now do you understand why I paused } When the dandy 
came grinning forward, with looks and gestures of familiar 
recognition : when the pale Elizabeth implored him to spare 
her : — a keen arrow of jealousy shot whizzing through my heart,' 
and caused me wellnigh to fall backwards as I ran forwards. 
I bumped up against a bronze group in the garden. The group 
represented a lion stung by a serpent, /was a lion stung by a 
serpent too. Even Baker could have knocked me down. 
Fiends and anguish ! he had known her before. The Academy, 
the life she had led, the wretched old tipsy ineffective guardian 
of a father — all these antecedents in poor Bessy’s history passed 
through my mind. And I had offered my heart and troth to 
this woman ! Now, my dear sir, I appeal to you. What would 
you have done ? Would you have liked to have such a sudden 
suspicion thrown over the being of your affection ? “ Oh ! 

spare me — spare me ! ” I heard her say, in clear — too clear — 
pathetic tones. And then there came rather a shrill “Ah!” 
and then the lion was up in my breast again ; and I give you my 
honor, just as I was going to step forward — to step ? — to rush 
forward from behind the urn where I had stood for a moment 
with thumping heart, Bessy’s “ Ah ! ” or little cry was followed 
by a whack., which I heard as clear as anything I ever heard in 
my life ; — and I saw the little Captain spin back, topple over a 
chair heels up, and in this posture heard him begin to scream 
and curse in shrill tones. * * * 

Not for long, for as the Captain and the chair tumble down, 
a door springs open ; — a man rushes in, who pounces like a 
panther upon the prostrate Captain, pitches into his nose and 
eyes, and chokes his bad language by sending a fist down his 
naughty throat. 

“Oh! thank you, Bedford! — please, leave him, Bedford! 
that’s enough. There, don’t hurt him any more ! ” says Bessy, 
laughing — laughing, upon my word. 

“ Ah ! will you } ” says Bedford. “ Lie still, you little beg- 
gar, or I’ll knock your head off. Look here. Miss Prior! — 
Elizabeth — dear — dear Elizabeth ! I love you with all my heart, 
and soul, and strength — I do.” 

“ O Bedford ! Bedford ! ” warbles Elizabeth. 

“ I do ! I can’t help it. I must say it ! Ever since Rome, I 


ic-ss 



BEDFORD TO THE RESCUE. 


-V. . 






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IN IF/I/C/I / AM STUNG BY A SERPENT 


797 


do. Lie still, you drunken little beast ! It’s no use. But I 
adore you, O Elizabeth ! Elizabeth ! ” And there was Dick, 
who was always following Miss P. about, and poking his head 
into keyholes to spy her, actually making love to her over the 
prostrate body of the Captain. 

Now, what was I to do ? Wasn’t I in a most confoundedly 
awkward situation ? A lady had been attacked — a lady ! — the 
lady, and I hadn’t rescued her. Her insolent enemy was over- 
thrown, and I hadn’t done it. A champion, three inches shorter 
than myself, had come in, and dealt the blow. I was in such 
a rage of mortification, that I should have liked to thrash the 
Captain and Bedford too. The first I know I could have 
matched : the second was a tough little hero. And it was he 
who rescued the damsel, whilst I stood by ! In a strait so 
odious, sudden, and humiliating, what should I, what could I, 
what did I do ? 

Behind the lion and snake there is a brick wall and marble 
balustrade, built for no particular reason, but flanking three 
steps and a grassy terrace, which then rises up on a level to the 
house-windows. Beyond the balustrade is a shrubbery of more 
lilacs and so forth, by which you can walk round into another 
path, which also leads up to the house. So as I had not 
charged — ah ! woe is me ! — as the battle was over, I — I just 
went round that shrubbery into the other path, and so entered 
the house, arriving like Fortinbras in “ Hamlet,” when every- 
body is dead and sprawling, you know, and the whole business 
is done. 

And was there to be no end to my shame, or to Bedford’s 
laurels } In that brief interval, whilst I was walking round the 
bypath (just to give myself a pretext for ent^ng coolly into the 
premises), this fortunate fellow had absolutely engaged another 
and larger champion. This was no other than Bulkeley, my 
Lady B.’s first-class attendant. When the Captain fell, amidst 
his screams and curses, he called for Bulkeley : and that indi- 
vidual made his appearance, with a little Scotch cap perched 
on his powdered head. 

“ Hullo ! what’s the row year ? ” says Goliath, entering. 

Kill that blackguard ! Hang him, kill him ! ” screams 
Captain Blacksheep, rising with bleeding nose. 

“ I say, what’s the row year } ” asks the grenadier. 

Off with your cap, sir, before a lady ! ” calls out Bedford. 

“ Hoff with my cap ! you be bio ” 

But he said no more, for little Bedford jumped some two 
feet from the ground, and knocked the cap off, so that a cloud 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


798 

of ambrosial powder filled the room with violet odors. The 
immense frame of the giant shook at this insult : “1 will be the 
death on you, you little beggar ! ” he grunted out ; and was 
advancing to destroy Dick, just as I entered in the cloud which 
his head had raised. 

“ I’ll knock the brains as well as the powder out of your 
ugly head! ” says Bedford, springing at the poker. At which 
juncture I entered. 

“ What — what is this disturbance ? ” I say, advancing with 
an air of mingled surprise and resolution. 

“You git out of the way till I knock his ’ead off !” roars 
Bulkeley. 

“ Take up your hat, sir, and leave the room,” I say, still 
with the same elegant firmness. 

“ Put down that there poker, you coward ! ” bellows the 
monster on board wages. 

“ Miss Prior ! ” I say (like a dignified hypocrite, as I own I 
was), “ 1 hope no one has offered you a rudeness ? ” And I 
glare round, first at the knight of the bleeding nose, and then 
at his squire. 

Miss Prior’s face, as she replied to me, wore a look of awful 
scorn. 

“Thank you, sir,” she said, turning her head over her 
shoulder, and looking at me with her gray eyes. “ Thank you, 
Richard Bedford ! God bless you ! I shall ever be thankful 
to you, wherever I am.” And the stately figure swept out of 
the room. 

She had seen me behind that confounded statue, then, and 
I had not come to her 1 O torments and racks I O scorpions, 
fiends and ]5itchfa|^s ! The face of Bedford, too (flashing with 
knightly gratitud^non as she spoke kind words to him and 
passed on), wore a look of scorn as he turned towards me, 
and then stood, his nostrils distended, and breathing somewhat 
hard, glaring at his enemies, and still grasping his mace of 
battle. 

When Elizabeth was gone, there was a pause of a moment, 
and then Blacksheep, taking his bleeding cambric from his nose, 
shrieks out, “ Kill him, I say I A fellow that dares to hit one 
in my condition, and when I’m down ! Bulkeley, you great 
hulking jackass ! kill him, I say I ” 

“ Jest let him put that there poker down, that’s hall,” growls 
Bulkeley. 

“ You’re afraid, you great cowardly beast ! You shall go, 
Mr. What-d’ye-call-’im — Mr. Bedford — you shall have the sack, 


m WHICH / AM STUNG BY A SERPENT. 


799 

sir, as sure as your name is what it is ! I’ll tell my brother-in- 
law everything ; and as for that woman ” 

“ If you say a word against her, I’ll cane you wherever I see 
you, Captain Baker ! ” I cry out. 

“Who spoke Xo you says the Captain, falling back and 
scowling at me. 

“ Who hever told you to put your foot in } ” says the squire. 

I was in such a rage, and so eager to find an object on which 
I might wreak my fury, that I confess I plunged at this Bulkeley. 
I gave him two most violent blows on the w'aistcoat, which 
caused him to double up with such frightful contortions, that 
Bedford burst out laughing; and even the Captain with the 
damaged eye and nose began to laugh too. Then, taking a 
lesson from Dick, as there was a fine shining dagger on the 
table, used for the cutting ope» of reviews and magazines, I 
seized and brandished this weapon, and I dare say would have 
sheathed it in the giant’s bloated corpus, had he made any 
movement towards me. But he only called out, “ hi’ll be the 
death on you, you cowards ! hl’ll be the death of both on you ! ” 
and snatching up his cap from the carpet, walked out of the 
room. 

“Glad you did that, though,” says Baker, nodding his head. 
“ Think I’d best pack up.” 

And now the Devil of Rage which had been swelling 
within me gave place to a worse devil — the Devil of Jealousy 
— and I turned on the Captain, who was also just about to slink 
away : — 

“ Stop ! ” I cried out — I screamed out, I may say. 

“ Who spoke to you, I should like to know ? and who the 
dooce dares to speak to me in that sort of way "i ” says Clarence 
Baker, with a plentiful garnish of expletives, which need not be 
here inserted. But he stopped, nevertheless, and turned slouch- 
ing round. 

“ You spoke just now of Miss Prior "i ” I said. “ Have you 
anything against her 1 ” 

“ What’s that to you ? ” he asked. 

“ I am her oldest friend. I introduced her into this family. 
Dare you say a word against her ” 

“ Well, who the dooce has ? ” 

“ You knew her before "i ” 

“ Yes, I did, then.” 

“ When she went by the name of Bellenden ? ” 

“ Of course I did. And what’s that to you 1 ” he screams 


out. 


goo LOVEL THE W/ DOWER. 

“ I this day asked her to be my wife, sir ! That's what it is 
to me ! ” I replied, with severe dignity. 

Mr. Clarence began to whistle. “ Oh ! if that’s it — of 
course not ! ” he says. 

The jealous demon writhed within me and rent me. 

“ You mean that there is something, then ? ” I asked, glar- 
ing at the young reprobate. 

“ No, I don’t,” says he, looking very much frightened. 
“ No, there is nothin’. Upon my sacred honor, there isn’t, that 
I know.” (I was looking uncommonly fierce at this time, and, 
I must own, would rather have quarrelled with somebody than 
not.) “ No, there is nothin’ that I know. Ever so many years 
ago, you see, I used to go with Tom Papillion, Turkington, and 
two or three fellows, to that theatre. Dolphin had it. And we 
used to go behind the scenes — and — and I own I had a row 
with her. And I was in the wrong. There now, I own I was. 
And she left the theatre. And she behaved quite right. And 
I was very sorry. And I believe she is as good a woman as 
ever stept now. And the father was a disreputable old man, 
but most honorable — I know he was. And there was a fellow 
in the Bombay service — a fellow by the name of Walker or 
Walkingham — yes, Walkingham ; and I used to meet him at the 
‘ Cave of Harmony,’ you know ; and he told me that she was 
as right as right could be. And he was doosidly cut up about 
leaving her. And he would have married her, I dessay, only 
for his father the General, who w^ouldn’t stand it. And he was 
ready to hang himself when he went away. He used to drink 
awfully, and then he used to swear about her ; and we used to 
chaff him, you know. Low, vulgarish sort of man, he was ; and 
a very passionate fellow. And if you’re goin’ to marry her, you 
know — of course, I ask your pardon, and that ; and upon the 
honor of a gentleman I know nothin’ against her. And I wish 
you joy and all that sort of thing. I do now, really now ! ” 
And so saying, the mean, mischievous little monkey sneaked 
away, and clambered up to his own perch in his own bedroom. 

Worthy Mrs. Bonnington, with a couple of her young ones, 
made her appearance at this juncture. She had a key, which 
gave her a free pass though the garden door, and brought her 
children for an afternoon’s play and fighting with their little 
nephew and niece. Decidedly, Bessy did not bring up her young 
folks well. Was it that their grandmothers spoiled them, and 
undid the governess’s work ? Were those young people odious 
(as they often were) by nature, or rendered so by the neglect 
of their guardians? If Bessy had loved her charges more, 


IN WHICH I AM STUNG BY A SERPENT. 8oi 

would th^ not have been better? Had she a kind, loving, 
niaternal^eart ? Ha ! This thought — this jealous doubt— 
smote my bosom : and were she mine, and the mother of many 
possible little Batchelors, would she be kind to Hiem ? Would 
they be wilful, and selfish, and abominable little wretches, in a 
word, like these children ? Nay — nay ! Say that Elizabeth 
has but a cold heart ; we cannot be all perfection. But, per 
contra^ you must admit that, cold as she is, she does her duty. 
How good she has been to her own brothers and sisters : how 
cheerfully she has given away her savings to them : how admir- 
ably she has behaved to her mother, hiding the iniquities of that 
disreputable old schemer, and covering her improprieties with 
decent filial screens and pretexts. Her mother ? Ah I grands 
dieuxf You want to marry, Charles Batchelor, and you will 
have that greedy pauper for a mother-in-law ; that fluffy Blue- 
coat boy, those hobnailed taw-players, top-spinners, toffee-eaters, 
those underbred girls, for your brothers and sisters-in-law ! 
They will be quartered upon you. You are so absurdly weak 
and good-natured — you know you are — that you will never be 
able to resist. Those boys will grow up : they will go out as 
clerks or shopboys : get into debt, and expect you to pay their 
bills : want to be articled to attorneys and so forth, and call 
upon you for the premium. Their mother will never be out of 
your house. She will ferret about in your drawers and ward- 
robes, filch your haberdashery, and cast greedy eyes on the 
very shirts and coats on your back, and calculate when she can 
get them for her boys. Those vulgar young miscreants will 
never fail to come and dine with you on a Sunday. They will 
bring their young linendraper or articled friends. They will 
draw bills on you, or give their own to money-lenders, and un- 
less you take up those bills they will consider you a callous, 
avaricious brute, and the heartless author of their ruin. The 
girls will come and practise on your wife’s piano. They won’t 
come to you on Sundays only ; they will always be staying in 
the house. They will always be preventing a tele-a-tete between 
your wife and you. As they grow old, they will want her to 
take them out to tea-parties, and to give such entertainments, 
where they will introduce their odious young men. They will 
expect you to commit meannesses, in order to get theatre 
tickets for them from the newspaper editors of your acquaint- 
ance. You will have to sit in the back seat : to pay the cab 
to and from the play : to see glances and bows of recognition 
passing between them and dubious bucks in the lobbies : and 
to lend the girls your wife’s gloves, scarfs, ornaments, smelling- 

SI 


8o2 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER, 


bottles, and handkerchiefs, which of course they will never return. 
If Elizabeth is ailing from any circumstance, they will get a 
footing in your house, and she will be jealous of them. The 
ladies of your own family will quarrel with them of course ; and 
very likely your mother-in-law will tell them a piece of her 
mind. And you bring this dreary certainty upon you, because, 
forsooth, you fall in love with a fine figure, a pair of gray eyes, 
and a head of auburn (not to say red) hair ! O Charles Batche- 
lor ! in what a galley hast thou seated thyself, and what a family 
is crowded in thy boat ! 

All these thoughts are passing in my mind, as good Mrs. 
Bonnington is prattling to me — I protest I don’t know about 
what. I think 1 caught some faint sentences about the Pata- 
gonian mission, the National schools, and Mr. Bonnington ’s 
lumbago ; but I can’t say for certain. I was busy with my own 
thoughts. I had asked the awful question — I was not answered. 
Bessy had even gone away in a huff about my want of gallantry, 
but I was easy on that score. As for Mr. Drencher, she had 
told me her sentiments regarding him ; “ and though I am 
considerably older, yet,” thought I, “ I need not be afraid of 
that rival. But when she says yes ? Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! Yes 
means Elizabeth — certainly, a brave young woman — but it 
means Mrs. Prior, and Gus, and Amelia Jane, and the whole 
of that dismal family.” No wonder, with these dark thoughts 
crowding my mind, Mrs. Bonnington found me absent ; and, as 
a comment upon some absurd reply of mine, said, “ La ! Mr. 
Batchelor, you must be crossed in love ! ” Crossed in love ! 
It might be as well for some folks if they were crossed in love. 
At my age, and having loved madly, as I did, that party in 
Dublin, a man doesn’t take the second fit by any means so 
strongly. Well ! well ! the die was cast, and I was there to 
bide the hazard. What can be the matter ? I look pale and 
unwell, and had better see Mr. D. "i Thank you, my dear Mrs. 
Bonnington. I had a violent — a violent toothache last night — 
yes, toothache ; and was kept awake, thank you. And there’s 
nothing like having it out ? and Mr. D. draws them beautifully, 
and has taken out six of your children’s ? It’s better now ; I 
dare say it will be better still, soon. I retire to my chamber : 
I take a book — can’t read one word of it. I resume my tragedy. 
Tragedy .? Bosh ! 

I suppose Mr. Drencher thought his yesterday’s patient 
would be better for a little more advice and medicine, for he 
must pay a second visit to Shrublands on this day, just after 
the row with the Captain had taken place, and walked up t<? 


IN WHICH I AM STUNG BY A SERPENT 803 

the upper regions, as his custom was. Very likely he found 
Mr. Clarence bathing his nose there, and prescribed for the 
injured organ. Certainly he knocked at the door of Miss 
Prior’s schoolroom (the fellow was always finding a pretext for 
entering that apartment), and Master Bedford comes to me, with 
a wobegone, livid countenance, and a Ha ! ha ! young Saw- 
bones is up with her ! ” 

“ So, my poor Dick,” I say, “ I heard your confession as I 
was myself running in to rescue Miss P. from that villain.” 

“ My blood was hup,” groans Dick, — “ up, I beg your 
pardon. When I saw that young rascal lay a hand on her I 
could not help flying at him. I would have hit him if he had 
been my own father. And I could not help saying what was 
on my mind. It would come out ; I knew it would some day. 
I might as well wish for the moon as hope to get her. She 
thinks herself superior to me, and perhaps she is mistaken. 
But it’s no use ; she don’t care for me ; she don’t care for 
anybody. Now the words are out, in course I mustn’t stay 
here.” 

“You may get another place easily enough with your char- 
acter, Bedford ! ” 

But he shook his head. “ I’m not disposed to black no- 
body else’s boots no more. I have another place. I have 
saved a bit of money. My poor old mother is gone, whom you 
used to be so kind to, Mr. B. I’m alone now. Confound that 
Sawbones, will he never come away ? I’ll tell you about my 
plans some day, sir, and I know you’ll be so good as to help 
me.” And away goes Dick, looking the picture of woe and 
despair. 

Presently, from the upper rooms. Sawbones descends. I 
happened to be standing in the hall, you see, talking to Dick. 
Mr. Drencher scowls at me fiercely, and I suppose I return him 
haughty glance for glance. He hated me : I him : I liked him 
to hate me. 

“ How is your patient, Mr. — a — Drencher ? ” I ask. 

“ Trifling contusion of the nose — brown paper and vinegar,” 
says the Doctor. 

“ Great powers ! did the villain strike her on the nose ? ” I 
cry, in terror. 

“ Her — whom } ” says he. 

“ Oh — ah — yes — indeed ; it’s nothing,” I say, smiling. The 
fact is I had forgotten about Baker in my natural anxiety for 
Elizabeth. 

“ I don’t know what you mean by laughing, sir t ” says the 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


S04 

red-haired practitioner. “ But if you mean chaff, Mr. Batchelor, 
let me tell you I don’t want chaff, and I won’t have chaff ! ’* 
and herewith, exit Sawbones, looking black doses at me. 

Jealous of me, think I, as I sink down in a chair in the 
morning-room, where the combat had just taken place. And 
so thou, too, art fever-caught, my poor physician ! What a 
fascination this girl has ! Here’s the butler : here’s the medical 
man : here am I : here is the captain has been smitten — 
smitten on the nose. Has the gardener been smitten too, and 
is the page gnawing his buttons off for jealousy, and is Mons. 
Bulkeley equally in love with her ? I take up a review, and 
think over this, as I glance through its pages. 

As I am lounging and reading, Mons. Bulkeley himself 
makes his appearance, bearing in cloaks and packages be- 
longing to his lady. “ Have the goodness to take that cap off,” 
I say, coolly. 

“ You ’ave the goodness to remember that if hever I see 
you hout o’ this ’ouse I’ll punch your hugly ’ead off,” says the 
monstrous menial. But I poise my paper-cutter, and he retires 
growling. 

From despondency I pass to hope ; and the prospect of 
marriage, which before appeared so dark to me, assumes a 
gayer hue. I have four hundred a year, and that house in 
Devonshire Street, Bloomsbury Square, of which the upper part 
will be quite big enough for us. If we have children, there is 
Queen Square for them to walk and play in. Several genteel 
families I know, who still live in the neighborhood, will come 
and see my wife, and we shall have a comfortable, cosy little 
society, suited to our small means. The tradesmen in Lamb’s 
Conduit Street are excellent, and the music at the Foundling 
always charming. I shall give up one of my clubs. The other 
is within an easy walk. 

No : my wife’s relations will not plague me. Bessy is a 
most sensible, determined woman, and as cool a hand as I 
know. She will only see Mrs. Prior at proper (and, I trust, 
distant) intervals. Her brothers and sisters will learn to know 
their places, and not obtrude upon me or the company which I 
keep. My friends, who are educated people and gentlemen, 
will not object to visit me because I live over a shop (my 
ground floor and spacious back premises in Devonshire Street 
are let to a German toy-warehouse). I shall add a hundred or 
two at least to my income by my literary labor ; and Bessy, who 
has practised frugality all her life, and been a good daughter 
and a good sister, I know will prove a good wife, and, please 


IN WHICH / AM STUNG BY A SERPENT 


805 

heaven ! a good mother. Why, four hundred a year, plus two 
hundred, is a nice little income. And my old college friend, 
Wigmore, who is just on the Bench .? He will, he must get me 
a place — say three hundred a year. With nine hundred a year 
we can do quite w'ell. 

Love is full of elations and despondencies. The future, 
over which such a black cloud of doubt lowered a few minutes 
since, blushed a sweet rose-color now. I saw myself happy, 
beloved, with a competence, and imagined myself reposing in 
the delightful garden of Red Lion Square on some summer 
evening, and half a dozen little Batchelors frisking over the 
flower-bespangled grass there. 

After our little colloquy, Mrs. Bonnington, not finding much 
pleasure in my sulky society, had gone to Miss Prior’s room 
with her young folks, and as the door of the morning- room 
opened now and again, I could hear the dear young ones scuL 
tling about the passages, where they were playing at horses, 
and fighting, and so forth. After a while good Mrs. B. came 
down from the schoolroom. “ Whatever has happened, Mr. 
Batchelor ? ” she said to me, in her passage through the 
morning-room. “Miss Prior is very pale and absent. You 
are very pale and absent. Have you been courting her, you 
naughty man, and trying to supplant Mr. Drencher ? There 
now, you turn as red as my ribbon ! Ah ! Bessy is a good girl, 
and so fond of my dear children. ‘ Ah, dear Mrs. Bonnington,’ 
she says to me- — but of course you won’t tell Lady B. : it would 
make Lady B. perfectly furious. ‘ Ah ! ’ says Miss P. to me, ‘ I 
wish, ma’am, that my little charges were like their dear little 
uncles and aunts — so exquisitely brought up!’ Pop again 
wished to beat his uncle. I wish — I wish Frederick would send 
that child to school ! Miss P. owns that he is too much for 
her. Come, children, it is time to go to dinner.” And, with 
more of this prattle, the good lady summons her young ones, 
who descend from the schoolroom with their nephew and 
niece. 

Following nephew and niece, comes demure Miss Prior, to 
whom I fling a knowing glance, which says, plain as eyes can 
speak — Do, Elizabeth, come and talk for a little to your faith- 
ful Batchelor ! She gives a sidelong look of intelligence, leaves 
a parasol and a pair of gloves on a table, accompanies Mrs. 
Bonnington and the young ones into the garden, sees the 
clergyman’s wife and children disappear through the garden 
gate, and her own youthful charges engaged in the strawberry- 
beds; and, of course, returns to the morning-room for her 


8o6 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


parasol and gloves, which she had forgotten. There is a calm* 
ness about that woman — an easy, dauntless dexterity, which 
frightens me — ma parole dlhonneiir. In that white breast is 
there a white marble stone in place of the ordinary cordial 
apparatus ? Under the white velvet glove of tliat cool hand 
are there bones of cold steel ? 

“ So, Drencher has again been here, Elizabeth ? ” I say. 

She shrugs her shoulders. “To see that wretched Captain 
Baker. The horrid little man will die ! He was not actually 
sober just now when he — when I — when you saw him. How I 
wish you had come sooner — to prevent that horrible, tipsy, dis- 
reputable quarrel. It makes me very, very thoughtful, Mr. 
Batchelor. He will speak to his mother — to Mr. Lovel. I 
shall have to go away. I know I must.” 

“ And don’t you know where you can find a home, Eliza- 
beth ? Have the words I spoke this morning been so soon 
forgotten ? ” 

“ Oh ! Mr. Batchelor ! you spoke in a heat. You could not 
think seriously of a poor girl like me, so friendless and poor, 
with so many family ties. Pop is looking this way, please. To 
a man bred like you, what can I be ? ” 

“ You may make the rest of my life happy, Elizabeth I ” I 
try. “ We are friends of such old — old date, that you know 
what my disposition is.” 

“ Oh ! indeed,” says she, “ it is certain that there never 
was a sweeter disposition or a more gentle creature.” (Some- 
how I thought she said the words “ gentle creature ” with 
rather a sarcastic tone of voice.) “ But consider your habits, 
dear sir. I remember how in Beak Street you used to be 
always giving, and, in spite of your income, always poor. You 
love ease and elegance ; and having, I dare say, not too much for 
yourself now, would you encumber yourself with — with me and 
the expenses of a household ? I shall always regard you, 
esteem you, love you as the best friend I ever had, and — void 
venir la mere du vaurienP 

Enter Lady Baker. “ Do I interrupt a tite-d-tete, pray ? ” 
she asks. 

“ My benefactor has known me since I was a child, and be- 
friended me since then,” said Elizabeth, with simple kindness 
beaming in her look. “ We were just speaking — I was just 
— ah ! — telling him that my uncle has invited me most kindly 
to St. Boniface, whenever I can be spared ; and if you and the 
family go to the Isle of Wight this autumn, perhaps you will 
intercede with Mr. Lovel, and let me have a little holiday 


IN Wlircn I AM STUNG BY A SERPENT 807 

Mary will take every charge of the children, and I do so long 
to see my dear aunt and cousins ! And I was begging Mr. 
Batchelor to use his interest with you, and to entreat you to 
use jiPur interest to get me leave. That was what our talk 
was about.” 

The deuce it was ! I couldn’t say No, of course ; but I pro- 
test I had no idea until that moment that our conversation had 
been about aunt and uncle at St. Boniface. Again came the 
horrible suspicion, the dreadful doubt — the chill as of a cold 
serpent crawding down my back — which had made me pause 
and gasp, and turn pale, anon when Bessy and Captain Clar- 
ence were holding colloquy together. What /las happened in 
this woman’s life ? Do I know all about her, or anything ; or 
only just as much as she chooses ? O Batch — Batch > I sus- 
pect you are no better than an old gaby ! 

“ And'Mr. Drencher has just been here and seen your son,” 
Bessy continues, softly ; “ and he begs and entreats your lady- 
ship to order Captain Baker to be more prudent. Mr. D. says 
Captain Baker is shortening his life, indeed he is, by his care- 
lessness.” 

There is Mr. Lovel coming from the City, and the children 
are running to their papa ! And Miss Prior makes her patron- 
ess a meek curtsey, and demurely slides away from the room. 
With a sick heart I say to myself, “ She has been — yes — hum- 
bugging is the word — humbugging Lady B. Elizabeth ! Eliz- 
abeth ! can it be possible thou art humbugging me too ? ” 

Before Lovel enters, Bedford rapidly flits through the room. 
He looks as a ghost. His face is awful gloomy. 

“ Here's the governor come,” Dick whispers to me. “ It 
must all come hout now — out, I beg your pardon. So she’s 
caught has she ? I thought she would.” And he grins a 
ghastly grin. 

“ What do you mean ? ” I ask, and I dare say turn rather 

red. 

“ I know all about it. I’ll speak to you to-night, sir. Con- 
found her ! confound her ! ” and he doubles his knuckles into 
his eyes, and rushes out of the room over Buttons entering 
with the afternoon tea. 

“ What on earth’s the matter, and why are you knocking 
the things about ? ” Lovel asks at dinner of his butler, who, 
indeed, acted as one distraught. A savage gloom was depict- 
ed on Bedford’s usually melancholy countenance, and the 
blunders in his service were many. With his brother-in-law 
Lovel did not exchange many words. Clarence was not yet 


8o8 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


forgiven for his escapade two days previous. And when Lady 
Baker cried, “ Mercy, ^hild ! what have you done to yourself.? ” 
and the Captain replied,” Knocked my face against a dark dooi 
— made my nose bleed,” Lovel did not look up or express a 
word of sympathy. “ If the fellow knocked his worthless head 
off, I should not be sorry,” the widower murmured to me. In- 
deed, the tone of the Captain’s voice, his ton., and his manners 
in general, were specially odious to Mr. Lovel, who could put 
up with the tyranny of women, but revolted against the vulgar- 
ity and assumption of certain men. 

As yet nothing had been said about the morning’s quarrel. 
Here we were all sitting with a sword hanging over our heads, 
smiling and chatting, and talking cookery, politics, the weather, 
and what not. Bessy was perfectly cool and dignified at tea. 
Danger or doubt did not seem to affect If she had been or- 
dered for execution at the end of the evening she would have 
made the tea, played her Beethoven, answered questions in hei 
usual voice, and glided about ‘from one to another with her 
usual dignified calm, until the hour of decapitation came, when 
she would have made her curtsey, and gone out and had the 
amputation performed quite quietly and neatly. I admired her, 
I was frightened before her. The cold snake crept more than 
ever down my back as I meditated on her. I made such awful 
blunders at whist that even good Mrs. Bonnington lost her 
temper with her fourteen shillings. Miss Prior would have 
played her hand out, and never made a fault, you may be sure. 
She retired at her accustomed hour. Mrs. Bonnington had her 
glass of negus, and withdrew too. Lovel keeping his eyes 
sternly on the Captain, that officer could only get a little sherry 
and seltzer, and went to bed sober. Lady Baker folded Lovel 
in her arms, a process to which my poor friend very humbly 
submitted. Everybody went to bed, and no tales were told of 
the morning’s doings. There was a respite, and no execution 
could take place till to-morrow at any rate. Put on thy night- 
cap, Damocles, and slumber for to-night at least. Thy slum- 
bers will not be cut short by the awful Chopper of Fate. 

Perhaps you may ask what need had I to be alarmed 1 
Nothing could happen to me. I was not going to lose a gover- 
ness’s place. Well, if I must tell the truth, I had not acted 
with entire candor in the matter of Bessy’s appointment. In 
recommending her to Lovel and the late Mrs. L., I had answer- 
ed for her probity, and so forth, with all my might. I had 
described the respectability of her family, her father’s campaigns, 
her grandfather’s (old Dr. Sargent’s) celebrated sermons j and 


IN WHICH I AM STUNG BY A SERPENT. 809 

had enlarged with the utmost eloquence upon the learning and 
high character of her uncle, the Master of Boniface, and the 
deserved regard he bore his niece. But that part of Bessy’s 
biography which related to the Academy I own I had not 
touched upon. A quoi bon ? Would every gentleman or lady 
like to have everything told about him or her ? I had kept the 
Academy dark then ; and so had brave Dick Bedford the butler; 
and should that miscreant Captain reveal the secret, I knew 
there would be an awful commotion in the building. I should 
have to incur Level’s not unjust reproaches for suppressio veri^ 
and the anger of those two viragin^s^ the grandmothers of Level’s 
children. I was more afraid of the women than of him, though 
conscience whispered me that I had not acted quite rightly by 
my friend. 

When, then, the bed-candles w'ere lighted, and every one 
said good-night, “ Oh ! Captain Baker,” say I, gayly, and putting 
on a confoundedly hypocritical grin, “ if you will come into my 
room, I will give you that book. 

“ What book ? ” says Baker. 

“ The book we were talking of this morning.” 

“ Hang me, if I know what you mean,” says he. And luck- 
ily for me, Lovel, giving a shrug of disgust, and a good-night to 
me, stalked out of the room, bed-candle in hand. No doubt, 
he thought his wretch of a brother-in-law did not well remember 
after dinner what he had done or said in the morning. 

As I now had the Blacksheep to myself, I said calmly, “ You 
are quite right. There was no talk about a book at all. Captain 
Baker. But I wished to see you alone, and impress upon you 
my earnest wish that everything which occurred this morning — 
mind, everything — should be considered as strictly private, and 
should be confided to no person whatever — ^you understand ? — 
to no person.” 

“Confound me,” Baker breaks out, “if I understood what 
you mean by your books and your ‘ strictly private.’ I shall 
speak what I choose — hang me ! ” 

“In that case, sir,” I said, “will you have the goodness to 
send a friend of - yours to my friend Captain Fitzboodle ? I 
must consider the matter as personal between ourselves. You 
insulted — and, as I find now, for the second time — a lady whose 
relations to me you know. You have given neither to her, nor 
to me, the apology to which we are both entitled. You refuse 
even to promise to be silent regarding a painful scene which 
was occasioned by your own brutal and cowardly behavior ; and 
you must abide by the consequences, sir ! you must abide by 


8io 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


the consequences ! ” And I glared at him over my flat candle- 
stick. 

“ Curse me ! — and hang me ! — and,” &c., &c., &c., he says, 
“ if I know what all this is about. What the dooce do you talk 
to 7ne about books, and about silence, and apologies, and send- 
ing Captain Fitzboodle to me ? / don’t want to see Captain 
Fitzboodle — great fat brute ! /know him perfectly well.” 

“ Hush ! ” say I, “ here’s Bedford.” In fact, Dick appeared 
at this juncture, to close the house and put the lamps out. 

But Captain Clarence only spoke or screamed louder. 
“ What do I care about who hears me ? That fellow insulted 
me already to-day, and I’d have pitched his life out of him, 
only I was down, and I’m so confounded weak and nervous, 
and just out of my fever — and — and hang it all ! what are you 
driving at, Mr. What’s-your-name ? ” And the wretched little 
creature cries almost as he speaks. 

“ Once for all, will you agree that the affair about which we 
spoke shall go no further ? ” I say, as stern as Draco. 

“ I sha’n’t say anythin’ about it. I wish you’d deave me 
alone, you fellows, and not come botherin’. I wish I could get 
a glass of brandy-and-water up in my bedroom. I tell you I 
can’t sleep without it,” whimpers the wretch. 

“ Sorry I laid hands on you, sir,” says Bedford, sadly. “ It 
wasn’t worth the while. Go to bed, and I’ll get you something 
warm.” 

“ Will you, though ? I couldn’t sleep without it. Do now — 
do now ! and I won’t say anythin’ — I won’t now — on the honor 
of a gentleman, I won’t. Good-night, Mr. What-d’-ye-call.” 
And Bedford leads the helot to his chamber. 

“ I’ve got him in bed ; and I’ve given him a dose ; and I 
put some laudanum in it. He ain’t been out. He has not had 
much to-day,” says Bedford, coming back to my room, with his 
face ominously pale. 

“ You have given him laudanum ? ” I ask. 

“ Sa7vbones gave him some yesterday, — told me to give him 
a little — forty drops,” growls Bedford. 

Then the gloomy major-domo puts a hand into each waist- 
coat pocket, and looks at me. “ You want to fight for her, do 
you, sir? Calling out, and that sort of game? Phoo ! ” — and 
he laughs scornfully. 

“The little miscreant is too despicable, I own,” say I, “and 
it’s absurd for a peaceable fellow like me to talk about powder 
and shot at this time of day. But what could I do ? ” 

“I say it’s she ain’t worth it,” says Bedford, lifting up 
both clenched fists out of the waistcoat pockets. 


CFXIUA'S SUCCESSOR. 8ii 

“ What do you mean, Dick ? ” I ask. 

“ She’s humbugging you, — she’s humbugging me, — she’s 
humbugging everybody,” roars Dick. “ Look here, sir ! ” and 
out of one of the clenched fists he flings a paper down on the 
table.' 

“ What is it ? ” I ask. It’s her handwriting. I see the 
neat trim lines on the paper. 

It’s not to you ; nor yet to me,” says Bedford. 

“ Then how dare you read it, sir ? ” I ask, all of a tremble. 

“It’s to him. It’s to Sawbones,” hisses out Bedford. 
“ Sawbones dropt it as he was getting into his gig ; and I read 
it. 1 ain’t going to make no bones about whether it’s wrote to 
me or not. She tells him how you asked her to marry you. 
(Ha!) That’s how I came to know it. And do you know 
what she calls you, and what he calls you, — that caster-hoil 
beast And do you know what she says of you 1 That you 
hadn’t pluck to stand by her to-day. There, — it’s all down 
under her hand and seal. You may read it, or not, if you like. 
And if poppy or mandragora will medicine you to sleep after- 
wards, I just recommend you to take it. / shall go and get a 
drop of the Captain’s bottle — I shall.” 

And he leaves me, and the fatal paper on the table. 

Now, suppose you had been in my case — would you, or 
would you not, have read the paper ? Suppose there is some 
news — bad news — about the woman you love, will you, or will 
you not, hear it ? Was Othello a rogue because he let lago 
speak to him ? There was the paper. It lay there glimmering 
under the light, with all the house quiet. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Cecilia’s successor. 

Monsieur et honore lecteur ! I see, as perfectly as if 
you were sitting opposite to me, the scorn depicted on your 
noble countenance when you read my confession that I, Charles 
Batchelor, Esquire, did burglariously enter the premises of 
Edward Drencher, Esquire, M. R. C. S. I. (phew ! the odious 
pestle-grinder, I never could bear him !) and break open, and 
read a certain letter, his property. I may have been wrong, 
but I am candid. I tell my misdeeds ; some fellows hold their 


8i2 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


tongues. Besides, my good man, consider the temptation, and 
the horrid insight into the paper which Bedford’s report had 
already given me. Would you like to be told that the girl of 
your heart was playing fast and loose wdth it, had none of her 
own, or had given hers to another ? I don’t want to make a 
Mrs. Robin Gray of any woman, and merely because “ her 
mither presses her sair ” to marry against her will. “ If Miss 
Prior,” thought I, “ prefers this lint-scraper to me, ought I to 
baulk her ? He is younger, and stronger, certainly, than myself. 
Some people may consider him handsome. (By the way, what 
a remarkable thing it is about many women, that, in affairs of 
the heart, they don’t seem to care or understand whether a man 
is a gentleman or not.) It may be it is my superior fortune and 
social station which may induce Elizabeth to waver in her choice 
between me and my bleeding, bolusing, tooth-drawing rival. If 
so, and I am only taken from mercenary considerations, what a 
pretty chance of subsequent happiness do either of us stand ! 
Take the vaccinator, girl, if thou preferrest him ! I know what 
it is to be crossed in love already. It’s hard, but I can bear it ! 
I ought to know, I must know, I will know what is in that 
paper ! ” So saying, as I pace round and round the table 
where the letter lies flickering white under the midnight taper, 

I stretch out my hand — I seize the paper — I w'ell, I own it 

■ — there — yes — I took it, and I read it. 

Or rather, I may say, I read that part of it which the 
bleeder and blisterer had flung down. It was but a fragment of 
a letter — a fragment — oh ! how bitter to swallow I A lump of 
Epsom salt could not have been more disgusting. It appeared 
(from Bedford’s statement) that ^sculapius, on getting into his 
gig, had allowed this scrap of paper to whisk out of his pocket 
— the rest he read, no doubt, under the eyes of the writer. Very 
likely, during the perusal, he had taken and squeezed the 
false hand which wrote the lines. Very likely the first part 
of the precious document contained compliments to him — 
from the horrible context I judge so — compliments to that 
vendor of leeches and bandages, into whose heart I dare say 
I wished ten thousand lancets might be stuck, as I perused 
the False One’s wheedling address to him ! So ran the 
document. How well every word of it was engraven on my 
anguished heart ! If page three., which I suppose was about the 
bit of the letter which I got, was as it was — what must pages 
one and two have been ? The dreadful document began, then, 
thus : — 


de^r hair in the locket, which I shall ei^er wear for the 


CECILIA'S SUCCESSOR. 8 1 3 

sake of him who gave it " — (dear hair ! indeed — disgusting 
carrots ! She should have been ashamed to call it “ dear hair”) 
* — “for the sake of him who gave it, and whose bad temper I 
shall pardon, because I think in spite of his faults he is a litth 
fond of his poor Lizzie ! Ah, Edward ! how could you go on so 
the last time about poor Mr. B. ! Can you imagine that I can 
ever have more than a filial regard for the kind old gentleman ?” 
(7/ etait question de moi, ma parole d’honneur. I was the kind 
old gentleman !) “ I have known him since my childhood. He 
was intimate in our family in earlier and happier days ; made 
our house his home ; and, I must say, was most kind to all of us 
children. If he has vanities, you naughty boy, is he the only 
one of his sex who is vain ? Can you fancy that such an old 
creature (an old muff., as you call him, you wicked, satirical 
man !) could ever make an impression on my heart ? No, sir !” 
(Aha ! So I was an old muff, was I ?) “Though I don’t wish 
to make you vain too, or that other people should laugh at you, 
as you do at poor dear Mr. B., I think, sir, you need but look 
in your glass to see that you need not be afraid of such a rival 
as that. You fancy he is attentive to me ? If you looked only 
a little angrily at him, he would fly back to London. To-day, 
when your horrid little patient did presume to offer to take my 
hand, when I boxed his little wicked ears and sent him spinning 
to the end of the room — poor Mr. Batch was so frightened that 
he did not dare to come into the room, and I saw him peeping 
behind a statue on the lawn, and he would not come in until the 
servants arrived. Poor man ! We cannot all of us have courage 
like a certain Edward, who I know is as bold as a lion. Now, 
sir, you must not be quarrelling with that wretched little captain 
for being rude. I have shown him that I can very well take 
care of myself. I knew the odious thing the first moment I set 
eyes on him, though he had forgotten me. Years ago I met 
him, and I remember he was equally rui^e and tips ” 

Here the letter was torn. Beyond “ tips ” it did not go. 
But that was enough, wasn’t it? To this woman I had offered 
a gentle and manly, I may say a kind and tender heart — I had 
offered four hundred a year in funded property, besides my 
house in Devonshire Street, Bloomsbury — and she preferred 
Edward, forsooth, at the sign of the Gallipot : and may ten 
thousand pestles smash my brains ! 

You may fancy what a night I had after reading that scrap. 
I promise you I did not sleep much. I heard the hours toll as 
I kept vigil. I lay amidst shattered capitals, broken shafts of 
the tumbled palace which I had built in imagination — oh 1 


8i4 


1.0 V EL THE WIDOWER. 


how bright and stately ! I sat amongst the ruins of my own 
happiness, surrounded by the murdered corpses of innocent- 
visioned domestic joys. Tick — tock ! Moment after moment 
I heard on the clock the clinking footsteps oi wakeful grief. I 
fell into a doze towards morning, and dreamed that I was dan- 
cing with Glorvina, when I w^oke with a start, finding Bedford 
arrived with my shaving-water, and opening the shutters. When 
he saw my haggard face he wagged his head. 

“You hcrje read it, I see, sir,” says he. 

“ Yes, Dick,” groaned I, out of bed, “ I have swallowed it.” 
And I laughed I may say a fiendish laugh. “ And now' I have 
taken it, not poppy nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups 
in his shop (hang him) wall be able to medicine me to sleep for 
some time to come ! ” 

“ She has no heart, sir. I don’t think she cares for t’other 
chap much,” groans the gloomy butler. “ She can’t, after 
having known us ” — and my companion in grief, laying down 
my hot-water jug, retreats. 

I did not cut any part of myself wdth my razor. I shaved 
quite calmly. I went to the family at breakfast. My impression 
is I was sarcastic and witty. I smiled most kindly at Miss 
Prior when she came in. Nobody could have seen from my 
outward behavior that anything was wrong within. I was an 
apple. Could you inspect the worm at my core ? No, no. 
Somebody, I think old Baker, complimented me on my good 
looks. I was a smiling lake. Could you see on my placid 
surface, amongst my sheeny water-lilies, that a corpse was 
lying under my cool depths ? “A bit of devilled chicken ? ” 
“ No, thank you. By the way, Lovel, I think I must go to 
town to-day.” “ You’ll come back to dinner, of course ? ” 
“ Well — no.” “ Oh, stuff ! You promised me to-day and to- 
morrow. Robinson, Brown, and Jones are coming to-morrow, 
and you must be here 4o meet them.” Thus we prattle on. I 
answer, I smile, I say, “Yes, if you please, another cup,” or, 
“ Be so good as to hand the muffins,” or what not. But I am 
dead. I feel as if I am under ground, and buried. Life, and 
tea, and clatter, and muffins are going on, of course ; and daisies 
spring, and the sun shines on the grass whilst I am under it. 
Ah, dear me ! it’s very cruel : it’s very, very lonely : it’s very 
odd ! I don’t belong to the world any more. I have done 
with it. I am shelved away. But my spirit returns and flitters 
through the world, which it has no longer anything to do with ; 
and my ghost, as it were, comes and smiles at my own tomb- 
stone. Here lies Charles Batchelor, the Unloved One. Oh ! 


CECILIA 'S SUCCESSOR. 8 1 5 

alone, alone, alone ! Why, Fate ! didst thou ordain that I 
should be coinpanionless ? Tell me where the Wandering Jew 
is, that I may go and sit with him. Is there any place at a 
lighthouse vacant? Who knows where is the Island of Juan 
Fernandez ? Engage me a ship and take me ther» at once. 
Mr. R. Crusoe, I think ? My dear Robinson, have the kindness 
to hand me over your goatskin cap, breeches, and umbrella. 
Go home, and leave me here. Would you know who is the 
solitariest man on earth ? That man am I. Was that cutlet 
which I ate at breakfast anon, was that lamb which frisked on 
the mead last week (beyond yon wall where the unconscious 
cucumber lay basking which was to 'form his sauce) — I say, w'as 
that lamb made so tender, that I might eat him ? And my heart, 
then ? Poor heart ! wert thou so softly constituted only that 
women might stab thee? So I am a Muff, am I? And she 
will always wear a lock of his “ dear hair,” will she ? Ha ! ha ! 
The men on the omnibus looked askance as they saw me laugh. 
They thought it was from Hanwell, not Putney, I was escaping. 
Escape? Who can escape ? I went into London. I went to 
the clubs. Jawkins, of course, was there ; and my impression 
is that he talked as usual. I took another omnibus, and went 
back to Putney. “I will go back and revisit my grave,” I 
thought. It is said that ghosts loiter about their former haunts 
a good deal when they are first dead ; flit wistfully among their 
old friends and companions, and, I dare say, expect to hear a 
plenty of conversation and friendly tearful remark about them- 
selves. But suppose they return, and find nobody talking of 
them at all ? Or suppose, Hamlet (Pere, and Royal Dane) 
comes back and finds Claudius and Gertrude very comfortable 
over a piece of cold meat, or what not ? Is the late gentleman’s 
present position as a ghost a very pleasant one ? Crow, Cocks ! 
Quick, Sundawn ! Open, Trap-door ! A Hons : it’s best to pop 
underground again. So I am a Muff, am I ? What a curious 
thing that walk up the hill to the house was ! What a different 
place Shrublands was yesterday to what it is .to-day ! Has the 
sun lost its light, and the flowers their bloom, and the joke its 
sparkle, and the dish its savor ? Why, bless my soul ! what is 
Lizzy herself — only an ordinary woman — freckled certainly — 
incorrigibly dull, and without a scintillation of humor : and you 
mean to say, Charles Batchelor, that your heart once beat about 
that woman ? Under the intercepted letter of that cold assassin 
my heart had fallen down dead, irretrievably dead. I remem- 
ber, a propos of the occasion of my first death, that perpetrated 
by Glorvitia— on my second visit to Dublin — with what a strange 


8i6 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


sensation I walked under sbme trees in the Phoenix: Park be- 
neath which it had been my custom to meet my False One 
Number L There were the trees — there were the birds singing 
— there was the bench on which we used to sit — the same, but 
how different ! The trees had a different foliage, exquisite 
amaranthine ; the birds sang a song paradisiacal ; the bench 
was a bank of roses and fresh flowers, which young Love twined 
in fragrant chaplets around the statue of Glorvina. Roses and 
fresh flowers ? Rheumatisms and flannel waistcoats, you silly 
old man ! Foliage and Song ? O namby-pamby driveller ! A 
statue? — a doll, thou twaddling old dullard ! — a doll with car- 
mine cheeks, and a heart stuffed with bran 1 say, on the 

night preceding that ride to and from Putney, I had undergone 
death — in that omnibus I had been carried over to t’other side 
of the Stygian shore. I returned but as a passionless ghost, 
remembering my life days, but not feeling any more. Love 
was dead, Elizabeth ! Why, the doctor came, and partook 
freely of lunch, and I was not angry. Yesterday I called him 
names, and hated him, and was jealous of him. To-day I felt 
no rivalship ; and no envy at his success ; and no desire to sup- 
plant him. No — I swear — not the slightest wish to make 
Elizabeth mine if she would. I might have cared for her yester- 
day — yesterday I had a heart. Psha ! my good sir or madam. 
You sit by me at dinner. Perhaps you are handsome, and use 
your eyes. Ogle away. Don’t baulk yourself, pray. But if 
you fancy I care a threepenny-piece about you — or for your 
eyes — or for your bonny brown hair — or for your sentimental 
remarks, sidelong warbled — or for you praise to (not of) my 
face — or for your satire behind my back— ah me ! — how mis- 
taken you are ! Peine perdue., ma chlre dame ! The digestive 
organs are still in good working order — but the heart ? Caret. 

I was perfectly civil to Mr. Drencher, and, indeed, wonder 
to think how in my irritation I had allowed myself to apply 
(mentally) any sort of disagreeable phrases to a most excellent 
and deserving and good-looking young man, who is beloved bv 
the poor, and has won the just confidence of an extensive circle 
of patients. I made no sort of remark to Miss Prior, except 
about the weather and the flowers in the garden. I was bland, 
easy, rather pleasant, not too high-spirited, you understand. — 
No : I vow you could not have seen a nerve wince, or the 
slightest alteration in my demeanor. I helped the two old 
dowagers ; I listened to their twaddle ; I gayly wiped up will) 
my napkin three-quarters of a glass of sherry which Pophain 
flung over my trousers. I would defy you to know that 1 had 


CECIL/A'S SUCCESSOR. 


817 

gone through the ticklish operation of an excision of the heart 
a few hours previously. Heart — pooh ! I saw Miss Prior’s lip 
quiver. Without a word between us, she knew perfectly well 
that all was over as regarded her late humble servant. She 
winced once or twice. While Drencher was busy with his plate, 
the gray eyes cast towards me no inter] ectional looks of puzzled 
entreaty. She^ I say, winced; and I give you my word I did 
not care a fig whether she was sorry, or pleased, or happy, or 
going to be hung. And I can’t give a better proof of my utter 
indifference about the matter, than the fact that I wrote two or 
three copies of verse descriptive of my despair. They appeared, 
you may perhaps remember, in one of the annuals of those days, 
and were generally attributed to one of the most sentimental of 
our young poets. I remember the reviews said they were 
“ replete with emotion,” “ full of passionate and earnest feel- 
ing,” and so forth. Feeling, indeed ! — ha ! ha ! “ Passionate 

outbursts of a grief-stricken heart ! ” — Passionate scrapings of a 
fiddlestick, my good friend. “ Lonely ” of course rhymes with 
“only,” and “gushes” with “blushes,” and “despair with 
“hair,” and so on. Despair is perfectly compatible with a good 
dinner, I promise you. Hair is false: hearts are false. Grapes 
may be sour, but claret is good, my master. Do you suppose 
I am going to cry my eyes out, because Chloe’s are turned upon 
Strephon 1 If you find any whimpering in mine, may they never 
wink at a bee’s wing again. 

When the Doctor rose presently, saying he would go and 
see the gardener’s child, who was ill, and casting longing looks 
at Miss Prior, I assure you I did not feel .a tittle of jealousy, 
though Miss Bessy actually followed Mr. Drencher into the 
lawn, under the pretext of calling back Miss Cissy, who had run 
thither without her bonnet. 

“ Now, Lady Baker, which was right ? you or I ? asks bonny 
Mrs. Bonnington, wagging her head towards the lawn where 
this couple of innocents were disporting. 

“ You thought there was an affair between Miss Prior and 
the medical gentleman,” I say, smiling. “It was no secret, 
Mrs. Bonnington.” 

“ Yes, but there were others who were a little smitten in 
that quarter, too,” says Lady Baker ; and she in turn wags her 
old head towards me. 

“ You mean me ? ” I answer, as innocent as a new-born 
babe. “ I am a burnt child. Lady Baker ; I have been at the 
fire, and am already thoroughly done, thank you. One of your 
charming sex jilted me some years ago; and once is quite 
enough, I am much obliged to you.” 

=^2 


8i8 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


This I said, not because it was true ; in fact, it was the 
reverse of truth ; but if I choose to lie about my own affairs, 
pray, why not ? And though a strictly truth-telling man gener- 
ally, when I do lie I promise you I do it boldly and well. 

“ If, as I gather from Mrs. Bonnington, Mr. Drencher and 
Miss Prior like each other, I wish my old friend joy. I wish 
Mr. Drencher joy with all my heart. The match seems to me 
excellent. He is a deserving, a clever, and a handsome young 
fellow ; and I am sure, ladies, you can bear witness to her good- 
ness, after all you have known of her.” 

“ My dear Batchelor,” says Mrs. Bonnington, still smiling 
and winking, “ I don’t believe one single word you say — not 
one single word ! ” and she looks infinitely pleased as she 
speaks. 

“ Oh ! ” cries Lady Baker, “ my good Mrs. Bonnington, you 
are always match-making — don’t contradict me. You know 
you thought ” 

“ Oh, please don’t,” cries Mrs. B. 

“ I will. She thought, Mr. Batchelor, she actually thought 
that our son, that my Cecilia’s husband, was smitten by the 
governess. I should like to have seen him dare ! ” and her 
flashing eyes turn towards the late Mrs. Level’s portrait, wi^h 
its faded simper leering over the harp. “ The idea that any 
woman could succeed that angel, indeed ! ” 

“ Indeed, I don’t envy her,” I said. 

You don’t mean, Batchelor, that my Frederick would not 
make any woman happy ?” cries the Bonnington. “ He is 
only seven-and-thirty, very young for his age, and the most affec- 
tionate of creatures. I am surprised, and it’s most cruel, and 
most unkind of you to say that you don’t envy any woman that 
marries my boy ! ” 

“ My dear good Mrs. Bonnington, you quite misapprehend 
me,” I remark. 

“ Why, when his late wife was alive,” goes on Mrs. B , 

sobbing, “ you know with what admirable sweetness and gen- 
tleness he bore her — her — bad temper — excuse me. Lady Baker ! 

“ Oh, pray, abuse my departed angel ! ” cries the Baker ; 
“ say that your son should marry and forget her — say that those 
darlings should be made to* forget their mother. She was a 
woman of birth, and a woman of breeding, and a woman of 
family, and the Bakers came in with the Conqueror, Mrs. 
Bonnington- ” 

“ I think I heard of one in the court of Pharaoh,” I inter 
posed. 


CECILIA^S SUCCESSOR. 8 1 9 

** And to say that a Baker is not worthy of a Lovel is pretty 
news indeed ! Do you hear that., Clarence ? ” 

“ Hear what, ma’am ? ” says Clarence, who enters at this 
juncture. “You’re speakin’ loud enough — though blesht if I 
hear two sh-shyllables.” 

“You wretched boy, you have been smoking ! ” 

“ Shmoking — haven’t I ? ” says Clarence with a laugh ; “ and 
I’ve been at the ‘ Five Bells,’ and I’ve been having a game of 
billiards with an old friend of mine,” and he lurches towards a 
decanter. 

“ Ah, don’t drink any more, my child ! ” cries the mother. 

“ I’m as sober as a judge, I tell you. You leave so precious 
little in the bottle at dinner, that I must get it when I can, 
mustn’t I, Batchelor, old boy } We had a row yesterday, hadn’t 
we .? No, it was sugar-baker. I’m not angry — ^you’re not angry. 
Bear no malish. Here’s your health, old boy ! ” 

The unhappy gentleman drank his bumper of sherry, and, 
tossing his hair off his head, said — “ Where’s the governess — 
where’s Bessy Bellenden ? Who’s that kickin’ me under the 
table, I say ? ” 

“ Where is who ? ” asks his mother. 

“ Bessy Bellenden — the governess — that’s her real name. 
Known her these ten years. Ushed to dansh at Prinsh’s Thea- 
tre, Remember her in the corps-de-ballet. Ushed to go be- 
hind the shenes. Dooshid pretty girl ! ” maunders out the 
tipsy youth ; and as the unconscious subject of his mischievous 
talk enters the room, again he cries out, “ Come and sit by me, 
Bessy Bellenden, I say ! ” 

The matrons rose with looks of horror in their faces. “ A 
ballet-dancer ! ” cries Mrs. Bonnington. “ A ballet-dancer ! ” 
echoes Lady Baker. “ Young woman, is this true ” 

“The Bulbul and the Roshe — hay?” laughs the Captain. 

Don’t you remember you and Fosbery in blue and shpangles ? 
Always all right, though, Bellenden was. Fosbery washn’t : 
but Bellenden was. Give you every credit for that, Bellenden. 
Boxsh my earsh. Bear no malish — no — no — malish ! Get 
some more sherry', you — whatsh your name — Bedford, butler — 
— and I’ll pay you the money I owe you.” And he laughs his 
wild laugh, utterly unconscious of the effect he is producing. 
Bedford stands staring at him as pale as death. Poor Miss 
Prior is as white as marble. Wrath, terror, and wonder are 
in the countenances of the dowagers. It is an awful scene ! 

“ Mr. Batchelor knows that it was to help my family I did 
it,” says the poor governess. 


820 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


Yes, by George ! and nobody can say a word against her,” 
bursts in Dick Bedford, with a sob ; “ and she is as honest as 
any woman here.” 

“ Pray, who told you to put your oar in ? ” cries the tipsy 
Captain. 

“ And you knew that this person was on the stage, and you 
introduced her into my son’s family ? Oh, Mr. Batchelor, Mr. 
Batchelor, I didn’t think it of you ! Don’t speak to me. Miss ! ” 
cries the flurried Bonnington. 

“ You brought this woman to the children of my adored 
Cecilia } ” calls out the other dowager. “ Serpent, leave the 
room ! Pack your trunks, viper ! and quit the house this in- 
stant. Don’t touch her, Cissy. Come to me, my blessing. 
Go away, you horrid wretch ! ” 

“ She ain’t a horrid wretch ; and when I was ill she was 
very good to us,” breaks in Pop, with a roar of tears : “ and 
you sha’n’t go. Miss Prior — my dear, pretty Miss Prior. You 
sha’n’t go ! ” and the child rushes up to the governess, and 
covers her neck with tears and kisses. 

“ Leave her, Popham my darling blessing ! — leave that 
woman ! ” cries Lady Baker. 

“ I won’t, you old beast ! — and she sha-a-a’n’t go. And I 
wish you was dead — and, my dear, you sha’n’t go, and Pa sha’n’t 
let you ! ” — shouts the boy. 

“ Oh, Popham, if Miss Prior has been naughty. Miss Prior 
must go ! ” says Cecilia, tossing up her head. 

“ Spoken like my daughter’s child ! ” cries Lady Baker : and 
little Cissy, having flung her little stone, looks as if she had 
performed a very virtuous action. 

“ God bless you, Master Pop, — ^you are a trump, you are ! ” 
says Mr. Bedford. 

“Yes, that I am, Bedford ; and she sha’n’t go, shall she ? ” 
cries the boy. 

But Bessy stooped down sadly, and kissed him. “ Yes, I 
must, dear,” she said. 

“ Don’t touch him ! Come away, sir ! Come away from 
her this moment ! ” shrieked the two mothers. 

“ I nursed him through the scarlet fever, when his own 
mother would not come near him,” says Elizabeth, gently. 

“ I’m blest if she didn’t,” sobs Bedford — “ and — bub — bub 
— bless you. Master Pop ! ” 

“ That child is wicked enough, and headstrong enough, and 
rude enough already ! ” exclaims Lady Baker. “ I desire, 
young woman, you will not pollute him further ! ” 


CECILIA 'S SUCCESSOR. 8 2 1 

That’s a hard word to say to an honest woman, ma’am,” 
says Bedford. 

“ Pray, Miss, are you engaged to the butler, too ” hisses 
out the dowager. 

“There’s very little the matter with Barnet’s child — only 
teeth. * ^ ^ * What on earth has happened ? My dear Lizzy 
— my dear Miss Prior — what is it ? ” cries the Doctor, who en* 
ters from the garden at this juncture. 

“ Nothing has happened, only this young woman has ap- 
peared in a new character^' says Lady Baker. “ My son has 
just informed us that Miss Prior danced upon the stage, Mr. 
Drencher ; and if you think such a person is a fit companion 
for your mother and sisters, who attend a place of Christian 
worship, I believe — I wish you joy.” 

“ Is this — is this — true .? ” asks the Doctor, with a look of 
bewilderment. 

“Yes, it is true,” sighs the girl. 

“ And you never told me, Elizabeth ? ” groans the Doctor. 

“ She’s as honest as any woman here,” calls out Bedford. 
“ She gave all the money to her family.” 

“ It wasn’t fair not to tell me. It wasn’t fair,” sobs the Doc- 
tor. And he gives her a ghastly parting look, and turns his back. 

“ I say, you — Hi ! What-d’you-call-’im ? Sawbones ! ” 
shrieks out Captain Clarence. “ Come back, I say. She’s all 
right, I say. Upon my honor, now, she’s all right.” 

“ Miss P shouldn’t have kept this from me. My 

mother and sisters are Dissenters, and very strict. I couldn’t 

ask a party into my family who has been — who has been 1 

wish you good morning,” says the Doctor, and stalks away. 

“And now, will you please to get your things ready, and 
go too 'i ” continues Lady Baker. “ My dear Mrs. Bonnington, 
you think ” 

“ Certainly, certainly, she must go ! ” cries Mrs. Bonnington. 

“ Don’t go till Lovel comes home. Miss. These ain’t your 
mistresses. Lady Baker don’t pay your salary. If you go, I 
go, too. There ! ” calls out Bedford, and mumbles something 
in her ear about “ the end of the world.” 

“ You go, too ; and a good riddance, you insolent brute ! ” 
exclaims the dowager. 

“ Oh, Captain Clarence ! you have made a pretty morning’s 
work,” I say. 

“ I don’t know what the dooce all the sherry — all the shinty’s 
about,” says the Captain, playing with the empty decanter. 

Gal’s a very good gal — pretty gal. If she choosesh dansh 


822 


LGVEL THE WIDOWER. 


shport her family, why the doosh shouldn’t she dansh shport a 
family ? ” 

“ That is exactly what I recommend this person to do,” says 
Lady Baker, tossing up her head. “ And now I will thank you 
to leave the room. Do you hear ? ” 

As poor Elizabeth obeyed this order, Bedford darted after 
her ; and I know ere she had gone five steps he had offered her 
his savings and every^thing he had. She might have had mine 
yesterday. But she had deceived me. She played fast and 
loose with me. She had misled me about this Doctor. I could 
trust her no more. My love of yesterday was dead, I say. 
That vase was broken, which never could be mended. She 
knew all was over between us. She did not once look at me 
as she left the room. 

The two dowagers — one of them, I think, a little alarmed 
at her victory' — left the house, and for once went away in the 
same barouche. The young maniac who had been the cause 
of the mischief staggered away, I know not whither. 

About four o’clock, poor little Pinhorn, the children’s maid, 
came to me, wellnigh choking with tears, as she handed me 
a letter. “ She’s goin’ away — she saved both them children’s 
lives, she did. And she’ve wrote to you, sir. And Bedford’s 
a goin’. And I’ll give warnin’, I will, too ! ” And the weeping 
handmaiden retires, leaving me, perhaps somewhat frightened, 
with the letter in my hand. 

“ Dear sir,” she said — “ I may write you a line of thanks 
and farewell. I shall go to my mother. I shall soon find an- 
other place. Poor Bedford, who has a generous heart, told me 

that he had given you a letter of mine to Mr. D . I saw 

this morning that you knew everything. I can only say now 
that for all your long kindnesses and friendship to my family I 
am always your sincere and grateful — E. P.” 

Yes : that was all. I think she was grateful. But she had 
not been candid with me, nor with the poor surgeon. I had no 
anger : far from it ; a great deal of regard and good-will, nay 
admiration, for the intrepid girl who had played a long, hard 
part very cheerfully and bravely. But my foolish little flicker 
of love had blazed up and gone out in a day. \ I knew that she 
never could care for me. In that dismal, wakeful night, after 
reading the letter, I had thought her character and story over, 
and seen to what a life of artifice and dissimulation necessity 
had compelled her. I did not blame her. In such circum- 
stances, with such a family, how could she be frank and open ? 
Poor thing ! poor thing ! Do we know anybody ? Ah ! dear 


CE CILIA* S SUCCESSOR, 


823 

me, we are most of us very lonely in the world. You who have 
any who love you, cling to them and thank God. I went into 
the hall towards evening : her poor trunks and packages were 
there, and the little nursery-maid weeping over them. The sight 
unmanned me ; and I believe I cried myself. Poor Elizabeth ! 
And with these small chests you recommence your life’s lonely 
voyage ! I gave the girl a couple of sovereigns. She sobbed 
a God bless me ! and burst out crying more desperately than 
ever. Thou hast a kind heart, little Pinhom ! 

“ ‘ Miss Prior — to be called for.’ Whose trunks are these ? 
says Lovel, coming from the City. The dowagers drove up at 
the same moment. 

“ Didn’t you see us from the omnibus, Frederick ? ” cries 
her ladyship, coaxingly. “ We followed behind you all the way ! ” 

“ We were in the barouche, my dear,” remarks Mrs. Ben- 
nington, rather nervously. 

“ Whose trunks are these ? — what’s the matter ? — and what’s 
the girl crying for ? ” asks Lovel. 

“ Miss Prior is a going away,” sobs Pinhorn. 

“ Miss Prior going? Is this your doing, my Lady Baker? 
— or yours, mother ? ” the master of the house says, sternly. 

“ She is going, my love, because she cannot stay in this 
family,” says mamma. 

“ That woman is no fit companion for my angel’s children, 
Frederick ! ” cries Lady B. 

“ That person has deceived us all, my love ! ” says mamma. 

“ Deceived ? — how ? Deceived whom ? ” continues Mr. 
Lovel, more and more hotly. 

“Clarence, love ! come down, dear ! Tell Mr. Lovel every- 
thing. Come down and tell him this moment,” cries Lady 
Baker to her son, who at this moment appears on the corridor 
which was round the hall. 

“ What’s the row now, pray ? ” And Captain Clarence de- 
scends, breaking his shins over poor Elizabeth’s trunks, and 
calling down on them his usual maledictions. 

“Tell Mr. Lovel where you saw that — that person, Clar- 
ence ? Now, sir, listen to my Cecilia’s brother ! ” 

“ Saw her — saw her in blue and spangles, in the ‘ Rose and 
the Bulbul,’ at the Prince’s Theatre — and a doosid nice-looking 
girl she was too ! ” says the Captain. 

“ There, sir ! ” 

“ There, Frederick ! ” cry the matrons in a breath. 

“ And what then ? ” asks Lovel. 


824 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


“ Mercy ! you ask, What then, Frederick ? Do you kno\f 
what a theatre is ? Tell Frederick what a theatre is, Mr. 
Batchelor, and that my grandchildren must not be educated 
by ” 

“ My grandchildren — my Cecilia’s children,” shrieks the 
other, “ must not be pol-luted by ” 

“ Silence ! ” I say. Have you a word against her — have 
you, pray. Baker } ” 

“No. ’Gad! I never said a word against her,” says the 
Captain. “ No, hang me, you know — but ” 

“ But suppose I knew the fact the whole time? ” asks Lovel, 
with rather a blush on his cheek. “ Suppose I knew that she 
danced to give her family bread ? Suppose I knew that she 
toiled and labored to support her parents, and brothers and 
sisters ? Suppose I know that out of her pittance she has con- 
tinued to support them ? Suppose I know that she watched my 
own children through fever and danger ? For these reasons I 
must turn her out of doors, must I ? No, by heaven I — No 1 — 
Elizabeth ! — Miss Prior I — Come down 1 — Come here, I beg 
you ! ” 

The governess, arrayed as for departure, at this moment ap- 
peared on the corridor running round the hall. As Lovel con- 
tinued to speak very loud and resolute, she came down looking 
deadly pale. 

Still much excited, the widower went up to her and took her 
hand. “ Dear Miss Prior ! ” he said — “ dear Elizabeth I you 
have been the best friend of me and mine. You tended my 
wife in illness, you took care of my children in fever and danger. 
You have been an admirable sister, daughter in your own 
family — and for this, and for these benefits conferred upon us, 
my relatives — my mother-in-law — would drive you out of my 
doors I It shall not be ! — by heavens, it shall not be I ” 

You should have seen little Bedford sitting on the gover- 
ness’s box, shaking his fist, and crying “ Hurrah ! ” as his master 
spoke. By this time the loud voices and the altercation in the 
hall had brought a half dozen of servants from their quarters into 
the hall. “ Go away, all of you 1 ” shouts Lovel ; and the 
domestic posse retires, Bedford being the last to retreat, and 
nodding approval at his master as he backs out of the room. 

“You are very good, and kind, and generous, sir,” says the 
pale Elizabeth, putting a handkerchief to her eyes. “ But with- 
out the confidence of these ladies, I must not stay, Mr. Lovel. 
God bless you for your goodness to me. I must, if you please, 
return to my mother.” 


CECILIA'S SUCCESSOR. 


825 

The worthy gentleman looked fiercely round at me two elder 
women, and again seizing the governess’s hand, said — “ Eliza- 
beth ! dear Elizabeth ! I implore you not to go ! If you love 
the children ” 

“ Oh, sir ! ” (A cambric veil covers Miss Prior’s emotion, 
and the expression of her face, on this ejaculation.) 

“ If you love the children,” gasps out the widower, “ stay 
with them. If you have a regard for — for their father ” — 
(Timanthes, where is thy pocket-handkerchief ?) — “ remain in 
this house, with such a title as none can question. Be the 
mistress of it.” 

“His mistress — and before me!” screams Lady Bake?. 
“ Mrs. Bonnington, this depravity is monstrous ! ” 

“ Be my wife, dear Elizabeth I ” the widower continues. 
“ Continue to watch over the children, who shall be motherless 
no more.” 

“ Frederick I Frederick ! haven’t they got us'i ” shrieks one 
of the old ladies. 

“ Oh, my poor dear Lady Baker ! ” says Mrs. Bonnington. 

“ Oh, my poor dear Mrs. Bonnington I ” says Lady Baker. 

“Frederick, listen to your mother,” implores Mrs. Bon- 
nington. 

“To your mothers,” sobs Lady Baker. 

And they both go down on their knees, and I heard a boohoo 
of a guffaw behind the green-baized servants’ door, where I 
have no doubt Mons. Bedford was posted. 

“ Ah, Batchelor I dear Batchelor, speak to him ! ” cries 
good Mrs. Boilny. “ We are praying this child, Batchelor — 
this child whom you used to know at College, and when he 
was a good, gentle, obedient boy. You have influence over 
my poor Frederick. Exert it for his heart-broken mother’s 
sake ; and you shall have my bubble-uble-essings, you shall.” 

“ Send for Doctor Straightwaist ! Order him to pause in his 
madness,” cries Baker ; “ or it is I, Cecilia’s mother, the mother 
of that murdered angel, that shall go mad.” 

“Angel? Allans I say. “Since his widowhood, you 
have never given the poor fellow any peace. You have been 
forever quarrelling with him. You took possession of his 
house ; bullied his servants ; spoiled his children — you did, 
Lady Baker.” 

“ Sir,” cries her ladyship, “ you are a low, presuming, vulgar 
man ! Clarence, beat this rude man ! ” 

“Nay,” I say, “there must be no more quarrelling to-day. 
And I am sure Captain Baker will not molest me. Miss Prior, 


826 


LOFEL THE WIDOWER. 


I am delighted that my old friend should have found a woman 
of good sense, good conduct, good temper — a woman who has 
had many trials, and borne them with very great patience — to 
take charge of him, and make him happy. I congratulate you 
both. Miss Prior has borne poverty so well that I am certain 
she will bear good fortune, for it is good fortune to become the 
wife of such a loyal, honest, kindly gentleman as Frederick 
Lovel.” 

After such a speech as that, I think I may say, liber avt 
a7iimam. Not one word of complaint, you see, not a hint about 
“ Edward,” not a single sarcasm, though I might have launched 
some terrific shots out of my quiver, and have made Lovel and 
his bride-elect writhe before me. But what is the need of 
spoiling sport ? Shall I growl out of my sulky manger, because 
my comrade gets the meat ? Eat it, happy dog ! and be thankful. 
Would not that bone have choked me if I had tried it ? Besides, 
I am accustomed to disappointment. Other fellows get the 
prizes which I try for. I am used to run second in the dreary 
race of love. Second ? Psha ! Third, Fourth. Que sais-je I 
There was the Bombay captain in Bess’s early days. There 
was Edward. Here is Frederick. Go to, Charles Batchelor ; 
repine not at fortune : but be content to be Batchelor still. My 
sister has childreri. I will be an uncle, a parent to them. Isn’t 
Edward of the scarlet whiskers distanced ? Has not poor Dick 
Bedford lost the race — poor Dick, who never had a chance, 
and is the best of us all ? Besides, what fun it is to see Lady 
Baker deposed : think of Mrs. Prior coming in and reigning 
over her ! The purple-faced old fury of a Baker, never will she 
bully, and rage, and trample more. She must pack up her traps 
and be off. I know she must. I can congratulate Lovel sincerely, 
and that’s the fact. 

And here at this very moment, and as if to add to the comi- 
cality of the scene, who should appear but mother-in-law No. 2 , 
Mrs. Prior, with her Bluecoat boy, and two or three of her 
children, who had been invited, or had invited themselves, to 
drink tea with Level’s young ones, as their custom was when- 
ever they could procure an invitation. Master Prior had a fine 
“ copy ” under his arm, which he came to show to his patron 
Lovel. His mamma, entirely ignorant of what had happened, 
came fawning in with her old poke-bonnet, her old pocket, that 
vast depository of all sorts of stores, her old umbrella, and her 
usual dreary smirk. She made her obeisance to the matrons, 
— she led up her Bluecoat boy to Mr. Lovel, in whose office she 
hoped to find a clerk’s place for her lad, on whose very coat 


CECILIA'S SUCCESSOR. 827 

and waistcoat she had designs whilst they were yet on his back : 
and she straightway began business with the dowagers — 

“ My lady, I hope your ladyship is quite well ? ” (a curtsey.) 
“ Dear, kind Mrs. Bonnington ! I came to pay my duty to you, 
mum. This is Louisa, my lady, the great girl for whom your 
ladyship so kindly promised the gown. And this is my little 
girl, Mrs. Bonnington, mum, please ; and this is my big Blue. 
Go and speak to dear, kind Mr. Lovel, Gus, our dear good 
friend and protector, — the son and son-in-law of these dear 
ladies. Look, sir, he has brought his copy to show you j and 
it’s creditable to a boy of his age, isn’t it, Mr. Batchelor ? You 
can say, who know so well what writing is, and my kind services 
to you, sir — and — Elizabeth, Lizzie, my dear! where’s your 
spectacles, you — you ” 

Here she stopped, and looking alarmed at the group, at the 
boxes, at the blushing Lovel, at the pale countenance of the 
governess, “ Gracious goodness I ” she said, “ what has hap- 
pened } Tell me, Lizzy, what is it ? ” 

“ Is this collusion, pray ? ” says ruffled Mrs. Bonnington. 

“ Collusion, dear Mrs. Bonnington ? ” 

“ Or insolence ? ” bawls out my Lady Baker. 

“ Insolence, your ladyship ? What — what is it ? What are 
these boxes — Lizzy’s boxes ? Ah ! ” the mother broke out with 
a scream, “ you’ve not sent the poor girl away ? Oh ! my poor 
child — my poor children ! ” 

“ The Prince’s Theatre has come out, Mrs. Prior,” here 
said I. 

The mother clasps her meagre hands. “ It wasn’t the dar- 
ling’s- fault. It was to help her poor father in poverty. It was 
I who forced her to it. Oh, ladies ! ladies ! — don’t take the 
bread out of the mouth of these poor orphans ! ” — and genuine 
tears rained down her yellow cheeks. 

“ Enough of this,” says Mr. Lovel, haughtily. “ Mrs. Prior, 
your daughter is not going away. Elizabeth has promised to 
stay with me, and never to leave me — as governess no longer, 
but as ” and here he takes Miss Prior’s hand. 

“His wife! Is this — is this true, Lizzy?” gasped the 
mother. 

“ Yes, mamma.” meekly said Miss Elizabeth Prior. 

At this the ola woman flung down her umbrella, and utter- 
ing a fine scream, folds Elizabeth in her arms, and then runs 
up to Lovel : “ My son ! my son ! ” says she (Level’s face was 
not bad, I promise you, at this salutation and salute). “ Come 
here, children ! — come, Augustus, Fanny, Louisa, kiss your dear 


828 


LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 


brother, children ! And where are yours, Lizzy ! Where are 
Pop and Cissy ? Go and look for your little nephew and niece, 
dears : Pop and Cissy in the schoolroom, or in the garden, 
dears. They will be your nephew and niece now. Go and 
fetch them, I say.” 

As the young Priors filed off, Mrs. Prior turned to the two 
other matrons, and spoke to them with much dignity : “ Most 

hot weather, your ladyship, I’m sure ! Mr. Bonnington must 
find it very hot for preaching, Mrs. Bonnington ! Lor’ ! there’s 
that little wretch beating my Johnny on the stairs. Have done. 
Pop, sir ! How ever shall we make those children agree, Eliza- 
beth ? ” 

Quick, come to me, some skilful delineator of the British 
dowager, and draw me the countenances of Lady Baker and 
Mrs. Bonnington ! 

“ I call this a jolly game, don’t you, Batchelor, old boy ? ” 
remarks the Captain to me. “ Lady Baker, my dear, I guess 
your ladyship’s nose is out of joint.” 

“ O Cecilia — Cecilia ! don’t you shudder in your grave } ” 
cries Lady B. “ Call my people, Clarence — call Bulkeley — call 
my maid ! Let me go, I say, from this house of horror ! ” and 
the old lady dashed into the drawing-room, where she uttered 
I know not what incoherent shrieks and appeals before that 
calm, glazed, simpering portrait of the departed Cecilia. 

Now this is a truth, for which I call Lovel, his lady, Mrs. 
Bonnington, and Captain Clarence Baker, as witnesses. Well, 
then, whilst Lady B. was adjuring the portrait, it is a fact that a 
string of Cecilia’s harp — which has always been standing in the 
corner of the room under its shroud of Cordovan leather — a 
string, I say, of Cecilia’s harp cracked, and went off with a loud 
bong^ which struck terror into all beholders. Lady Baker’s agi- 
tation at the incident was awful ; I do not like to describe k — ■ 
not having any wish to say anything tragic in this narrative — 
though that I can write tragedy, plays of mine (of which envious 
managers never could be got to see the merit) I think will prove, 
when they appear in my posthumous works. 

Baker has always averred that at the moment when the harp- 
string broke, her heart broke too. But as she lived for many 
years, and may be alive now for what I know ; and as she bor- 
rowed money repeatedly from Lovel — he must be acquitted of 
the charge which she constantly brings against him of hasten- 
ing her own death, and murdering his first wife Cecilia. “The 
harp that once in Tara’s Halls” used to make such a piteous 
feeble thrumming, has been carted off I know not whither ; and 


CECILIA'S SUCCESSOR. 


829 

Cecilia’s portrait, though it has been removed from the post of 
honor (where, you conceive, under present circumstance^ It 
would hardly be d propos\ occupies a very reputable position ih 
the pink room up stairs, which that poor young Clarence in- 
habited during my visit to Shrublands. 

All the house has been altered. There’s a fine organ in the 
hall, on which Elizabeth performs sacred music very finely. As 
for my old room, 1 will trouble you to smoke there under the 
present government. It is a library now, with many tine and 
authentic pictures of the Level family hanging up in' it, the Eng- 
lish branch of the house w’ith the wolf crest, and Gare a la louve 
for the motto, and a grand posthumous portrait of a Portuguese 
officer (Gandish), Elizabeth’s late father. 

As for dear old Mrs. Bonnington, she, you may be sure, 
would be easily reconciled to any live mortal who was kind to 
her, and any plan wdiich should make her son happy ; and Eliza- 
beth has quite won her over. Mrs. Prior, on the deposition ot 
the other dowagers, no doubt expected to reign at Shrublands, 
but in this object I am not very sorry to say was disappointed. 
Indeed, 1 was not a little amused, upon the very first day of her 
intended reign — that eventful one of which we have been de- 
scribing the incidents — to see how calmly and gracefully Bessy 
pulled the throne from under her, on which the old lady was 
clambering. 

Mrs. P. knew the house very w^ell, and everything which it 
contained ; and when Lady Baker drove off with her son and 
her suite of domestics. Prior dashed through the vacant apart- 
ments gleaning what had been left in the flurry of departure — 
a .scarlet feather out of the dowager’s room, a shirt-stud and a 
bottle of hair-oil, the Captain’s property. “And now they are 
gone, and as you can’t be alone wnth him, my dear, I must be 
with you,” says she, coming down to her daughter. 

“ Of course, mamma, I must be with you,” says obedient 
Elizabeth. 

“ And there is the pink room, and the blue room, and the 
yellow room for the boys — and the chintz boudoir for me — 1 can 
put them all away, oh, so comfortably ! ” 

“ I can come and share Louisa’s room, mamma,” says Bessy. 

It will not be proper for me to stay here at all — until after- 
wards, you know. Or I can go to my uncle at St. Boniface. 
Don't you think that will be best, eh, Frederick.’” 

“ Whatever you w ish, my dear Lizzy ! ” says Lovel. 

“And I dare say there will be some little alterations made 
in the house You talked, you know, of painting, Mr. Lovel ; 


S30 LOVEL THE WIDOWER. 

and the children can go to their grandmamma Bonningtoa 
,Andon our return when the alterations are made we shall always 
be delighted to see_;w/, Mr. Batchelor — our kindest old friend. 
Shall we not, Frederick ? ” 

“ Always, always,” said Frederick. 

“ Come, children, come to your teas,” calls out Mrs. P., in a 
resolute voice. 

“ Dear Pop, I’m not going away — that is, only for a few days, 
dear,” says Bessy, kissing the boy; “and you will love me, 
won’t you .? ” 

“ All right,” says the boy. But Cissy said, when the same 
appeal was made to her : “ I shall love my dear mamma ! ” and 
makes her new mother-in-law a very polite curtsey. 

“ I think you had better put off those men you expect to 
dinner to-morrow, Fred,” I say to Lovel. 

“I think I had, Batch,” says the gentleman. 

“ Or you can dine with them at the club, you know ? ” re- 
marks Elizabeth. 

“ Yes, Bessy.” 

“And when the children have had their tea I will go with 
mamma. My boxes are ready, you know,” says arch Bessy. 

“ And you will stay and dine with Mr. Lovel, won’t you, Mr. 
Batchelor } ” asks the lad)^ 

It was the dreariest dinner I ever had in my life. No un- 
dertaker could be more gloomy than Bedford, as he served us. 
We tried to talk politics and literature. We drank tob much, 
purposely. Nothing would do. “ Hang me, if I can. stand this, 
Lovel,” I said as we sat mum over our third bottle. “ I will go 
back and sleep at my chambers. I was not a little soft upon 
her myself, that’s the truth. Here’s her health, and happiness 
to both of you, with all my heart.” And we drained a great 
bumper apiece, and I left him. He was very happy I should go. 

Bedford stood at the gate, as the little pony-carriage came 
for me in the dusk. “God bless you, sir,” says he. “ I can’t 
stand it ; I shall go too.” And he rubbed his hands over his 
eyes. 

He married Mary Pinhorn, and they have emigrated to Mel- 
bourne ; whence he sent me, three years ago, an affectionate 
letter, and a smart gold pin from the diggings. 

A month afterwards, a cab might have been seen driving 
from the Temple to Hanover Square : and a month and a day 
after that drive, an advertisement might have been read in the 
Post ?LV\d. Times'. “ Married, on Thuisday, loth, at St. George’s, 
Hanover Square, by the Reverend the Master of St. Boniface 


CECILIA'S SUCCESSOR. 


831 

College, Oxbridge, uncle of the bride, Frederick Lovel, Esquire, 
of Shrublands, Roehampton, to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of 
the late Captain Montagu Prior, K. S. F.” 

We may hear of Lovel Married some other day, but here 
is an end of Lovel the Widower. Valdte ei plaudiie, you 
good people, who have witnessed the little comedy. Down with 
the curtain ; cover up the boxes ; pop out the gas-lights. Ho ! 
cab. Take us home, and let us have some tea, and go to bed. 
Good-night, my little players. We have been merry together, 
and we part with soft hearts and somewhat rueful countenances, 
don’t we ? 



The End. 


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110. False Hopes, by Gold win Smith.. 15 

111. Labor and Capitiil, by Edward 

Kellogg 20 

112. Wanda, by Ouida, Part 1 15 

Wanda, by Ouida, Part II 16 

113. More Words About the Bible, by 

Rev. Jas. S. Bush 20 

114. Monsieur Lecoq, byGaboriau,P't 1.20 
MonsieurLecoq, by Gaboriau, P’t II . 20 

115. An Outline of Iri-sh History, by 

Justin H. McCarthy. 10 

116. The Leroqge Case, by Gaboriau.. 20 

117. Paul Clifford, by. Lord Lytton...20 

118. A New Lease of Life, by About.. 20 

119. Bourbon Lillies 20 

120. Other Peoples’ Money, by Emile 

Gaboriau:. i .......20 

121. TheLady of Lyons, byLord Lyttou.lO 

1^. Ameliue de Bourg..,. ..15 


123. A Sea Quean, by W. Clark Rn88ell.20 

124. The Ladies Lindores, by Mrs. 

Oliphant 20 

125. Haunted Hearts, by J. P. Simpson. 10 

126. Loys, Lord Beresford, by The 

Duchess 20 

127. Under Two Flags, by Ouida, P’t 1.20 
Under Two Flags, by Ouida, P’t 11.20 

128. Money, by Lord Lytton 10 

129. In Peril of His Life, by Gaboriau. 20 

1.30. India, by Max Muller 20 

131. Jets and Flashes 20 


132. Moon.shine and Marguerites, by 

The Duchess 10 

133. Mr. Scarborough’s Family, by 

Anthony Trollope, Part 1 15 

Mr, Scarborough’s Family, by 
Anthony Trollope, Part II 15 

134. Arden, by A. Mary F, Roberts... 13 

135. The Tower of Percemont, by 

George Sand 20 

136. Yolande, by Win. Black... ......20 

137. Cruel London, by Joseph H:Uti>n.20 

138. The Gilded Clique, by Gabm iau...20 

139. Pike County Folks, by E. H Mott.. 20 

140. Cricket on the Hearth, by Dickens. 10 

141. Henry Esmond, by Thackeray, . . .20 

142. Strange Adventures of a Phaeton, 

by Wm. Bl.ack 20 

143. Denis Duval, by W. M.Thnckeray .10 
14 4. Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles 

Dickens, Part 1 16 

Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles 

Dickens. Part II ....15 

143. Ivanhoe, by Scott, Part 1 15 

Ivanhoe, by Scott, Part II 15 

146. White W ng«. by Wni. Black 20 

147. The Sketch Book, by Irving 20 

148. Catherine, by W. M. Thackeray 10 

149. Janet s Repentance, by Eliot 10 

150. Barnaby Rudge, Dickens Part 1.15 
Barnaby Rudge. Dickens P't 11.15 

151. FelixIIolt, by George Eliot.. .20 

153. Richelieu by Lord Lytton 10 

153. Sunrise, by Wm. Black Parti. ..15 

Sunrise, by Wm. Black Part II.. 15 
1.')4. Tour of the World in 80 Days. . . .20 
iTA. Mystery of Orcival. Gaboriau 20 

156. Lovel, The Widower, by W. M. 

Thac keray 10 

157. The Romantic Adventure.s of a 

Milkmaid, by Tho<. Hardy 10 

l.)S. David ' 'opperfield. Parti 20 

David Copperfleld, Part II 

139. Charlotte Temple 10 

160. Rienzi, by Lord Lytton, Parti.. 10 
Rienzi, by Lord Lytton, Part IT 10 

161, Promise of M.arriage, Gaboriau ,25 
I(;2. Faith and Unfaith, The Duchess 15 
163. The Happy Man, Samuel Lover. 10 
164 Barry Lyndon, by Thackeray. . .20 

165. Eyre’s Acquittal, Helen Mathers 10 

166. 20.000 Leagues under the Sea, by 

Verne .80 


BRAHr MD UEEVE POOD. 



Vitalized Phos-phites, 

COMPOSED OF THE NERVE-GIVING PRINCIPLES OF 
THE OX-BRAIN AND WHEAT-GERM. 

i It restores the energy lost by Nervousness or Indigestion ; relieves 
I Lassitude and Neuralgia; refreshes the nerves tired by worry, excite- 
j ment, or excessive brain fatigue ; strengthens a failing memory, and 
gives renewed vigor in all diseases of Nervous Exhaustion or Debility. 

1 It is the only PREVENTIVE FOR CONSUMPTION. 

I It aids wothd^rfulli/ in the meiUal and bodily growth of infants and 
I children. Under its use the teeth come easier , the bones grow better, the skin 
i plumper and smoother; the brain acquires mare readily, and rests and deeps 
more sioectly. An ill fed brain learns no lessons, and is excusable %f pee&ish. 
It gives a luippi&r and better childhood. 

It is witli the utmost confidence that I recommend this excellent pre- 
paration for the relief of indigestion and for general debility; nay, I do more . 
than recommend, 1 really urge all invalids to put it to the test, for in sev- 
eral cases personally known to me signal benefits have been derived from 
I its use. 1 have recently watched its effects on a young friend who has 
I suffered from indigestion all her life. After taking the Vitalized Pnos- 
I lUiiTES lor a fortnight she said to me; ‘ I feel another person; it is a pleas- 
! lire to live.’ Many hard-working men and women — especially those engaged 
in brain work — would be saved from the fatal resort to chloral and other 
destructive stimulants, if they would have recourse to a remedy so simple j 
and so efficacious. ” ' | 

Emily Faithkull. 

IhiYsiriANs HAVE ruEsminED oveu fiOO.OOO Packages because tuf.y 
its Composition, that it is not a secret remedy and 

'J'UAT 'HIE FOUMIH.A 18 PRINTED ON EVERY LABEL 

For Sale by Druirtrlsts or by 9<all, 

F. CROSBY CO., 664 and 666 Sixth Avenue, ITew York. 




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